Industry News
Peter Stone and Martin Blake join Golf Australia website
Award-winning golf journalists Peter
Stone and Martin Blake have joined Golf
Australia’s online team on a permanent
basis.
Having left Fairfax Media at the end
of 2012, the pair has almost 70 years’
experience in sports reporting between
them, with Blake covering golf for The
Age in Melbourne since 2002 and Stone
as chief golf writer for the Sydney
Morning Herald for 18 years.
They have covered key issues in the
game and countless tournaments, both
in Australia and overseas.
Both covered Golf Australia’s recent
ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open
for womensaustralianopen.com at Royal
Canberra Golf Club with record traffic
figures for the site.
Golf Australia’s Digital Director John
Sutherland said the pair would be an
important part of the growing online
team.
“Peter and Martin are well known
in Australian golf circles and have
broken countless stories over their
respective careers. They will be valuable
contributors to our site and, as they
have in the past, will generate plenty of
debate,” Sutherland said.
“In a period of some contraction in the
Australian media industry, Golf Australia,
as the peak national body in the game,
is committed to growing its coverage
of breaking news and issues in golf and
we now have the best team to do that,”
Sutherland added.
Top NZ golf club sells for NZ $12.8m
One of New Zealand’s top six golf clubs
has sold for a tidy sum of $12.8 million
- the Gulf Harbour Country Club. The
new owner, its fifth, is New Zealander
Chen Gau.
The club, which boasts world top
amateur golfer Lydia Ko as a member,
will lease the facility from Gau for the
foreseeable future, according to club
deputy chairman Doug Godfrey said.
The amount that has changed hands is
considered to be a bargain price, given
it would cost approximately $30m to
build the country club and golf course
now.
Membership is increasing and the club
has 100 junior players.
As well as it being the home club of
fifteen-year-old New Zealand Women’s
Golf Open champion Lydia Ko of Albany,
it is also the home club for golfer
Michael Hendry, who won the New
Zealand PGA Championship in 2012.
The course was designed by Robert
Trent Jones Jr and opened in 1997.
The club hosted the 1998 World Cup
of Golf and the New Zealand Open in
2005 and 2006.
Golf Industry Central Autumn 2013
9