{"id":7833,"date":"2023-09-14T05:16:55","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T17:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=7833"},"modified":"2023-09-14T05:16:55","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T17:16:55","slug":"12-year-old-wins-national-golf-title-despite-having-played-only-three-rounds-in-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=7833","title":{"rendered":"12-year-old wins national golf title, despite having played only three rounds in his life"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Bay of plenty schoolboy has won a national golf title after playing just three rounds of the game in his life.<\/p>\n

Bayleigh Teepa-Tarau nailed the nine-hole golf competition at the AIMS Games in Tauranga – an intermediate inter-school competition – with a\u00a0Stableford score<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0 87, last week.<\/p>\n

Bayleigh is from T\u0101neatua, which does not even have a golf course. But together with his T\u0101neatua School buddies, Pedro Robinson and Lincoln Reritito, they also won the teams gold, too.<\/p>\n

Teacher aide Whetu Wiremu got him into the game after Bayleigh, who is on the autism spectrum, was struggling a bit – sitting under his desk and not really speaking to anyone.<\/p>\n

But golf has changed that.<\/p>\n

\n
“Every kid likes whacking things,” Wiremu told Checkpoint\u00a0<\/em>on Wednesday, when asked why he introduced the trio to golf.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“I don’t know, I just thought introducing them to the game, they’d like it. Myself, I started playing golf about nine or 10 months ago. Obviously I enjoy it, and I just wanted them to experience something else other than their normal sports like rugby, touch and netball and stuff \u2026 and they ended up loving it.”<\/p>\n

\"Pedro<\/p>\n

Pedro Robinson, Lincoln Reritito, Bayleigh Teepa-Tarau and Whetu Wiremu.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Checkpoint \/ RNZ<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Bayleigh had little idea just how well he was doing during the tournament.<\/p>\n

“During Bayleigh’s last round, there was a few guys that run the tournament that were saying, ‘No one’s gonna catch up to this fella – he’s too ahead of everyone else,'” Wiremu said.<\/p>\n

“At the moment in time, I couldn’t really process it. But towards the end when he made his final putt, I was just like, ‘Bro.’ I told him the good news \u2026 he was going, ‘Did I actually win?'”<\/p>\n

Bayleigh said playing golf made him happy. Teammate Lincoln said they had only been playing for three weeks, crediting Wiremu with their rapid learning.<\/p>\n

“Next time, we can coach him,” Pedro quipped.<\/p>\n

The boys used Wiremu’s own clubs last week. He said since the tournament, the school has had offers of new sets from a few different people.<\/p>\n

The boys showed\u00a0Checkpoint\u00a0<\/em>host Lisa Owen – a self-confessed non-golfer – how to grip the club and swing properly.<\/p>\n

“Whack it as hard as you can,” Pedro concluded.\\<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Bay of plenty schoolboy has won a national golf title after playing just three rounds of the game in his life. Bayleigh Teepa-Tarau nailed the nine-hole golf competition at the AIMS Games in Tauranga – an intermediate inter-school competition – with a\u00a0Stableford score\u00a0of\u00a0 87, last week. Bayleigh is from T\u0101neatua, which does not even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7835,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7833\/revisions\/7835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}