Putting with pinot and chipping with chardonnay … meet the women who combine golf with wine tasting

Shelley Iñón meets a group of women who have combined their social and recreational sporting passions.

It’s Thursday afternoon, and a golf tournament is being held at the Geraldine Golf Club’s Denfield course in South Canterbury.

Through the stone entrance way into the carpark, the usual array of sedans and two-door vehicles – from BMWs to the customary Porche – owned by the morning’s 18-hole players are carefully lined up in rows.

Two hours later, those cars have gone. They have been replaced by a whole new fleet of utes, station wagons and a van – all practical vehicles that could tow a horse float or cart teenagers around. Out on the course, the ladies of South Canterbury are playing Nine and Wine.

With a dark cloud hovering overhead threatening to send the players running for cover, the women players have decided to take to the fairways in groups of two so they can get through their rounds quickly before any rain sets.

For years, golfing friends Rachel Harper and Ginny Bolderston had often wished more like-minded women would join the Geraldine Golf Club. They put their heads together, throwing around ideas to make golf a more appealing prospect, and Nine and Wine was born.

Harper felt an important fundamental for growing female membership at the club was understanding that women are time poor, and often busy with families, jobs, and household commitments. The answer they came up with was an initiative called Nine and Wine which allowed them to make the rules, or in this case get rid of them … allowing women to feel more comfortable about joining in with golf.

"The key to it is there are no rules, we shy away from any form of formality,” Harper said.

That informal mindset allows women to concentrate on hitting the ball and not the minute and distracting details of golf etiquette. While players were expected to respect the course, they could turn up whenever they felt like it and play as many holes as they felt comfortable with.

"You don't have to report in, it is very casual,” Harper continued. "We create an atmosphere in the club house – whether there are five players or 25 players, we all sit around the same table."

Harper confessed that the first few months playing with a bunch of new women golfers were "hilarious". Now, seven years later, Geraldine Golf Club still has newbies arriving, and beginners are constantly reminded that they all began in the same place.

To ensure the regular game days don't always have the same winners, Geraldine’s Nine and Wine organisers like to mix it up a bit and have competitions like "who hit the most trees."

Harper said they tried to be aware that it was nerve wracking playing golf for the first time, with many members never having touched a golf club before.

"Golfing advice is only ever given if asked for,” she said. But, if requested, professional coaching can of course be arranged.

Programmes like Nine and Wine fall under the umbrella auspices of Golf New Zealand’s She Loves Golf support network – which encourages women to get into the sport as a recreational activity which embraces friendship and fitness, with an emphasis on participation rather than striving for representative honours and titles.

She Loves Golf programmes are run at scores of golf clubs across New Zealand as the sport’s player numbers go from strength to strength, attracting in beginners while simultaneously acting as a magnet encouraging existing players to add in another round every so often amongst female companions.

Around the country, these gender specific She Loves Golf initiatives include such quaintly named events as the Chip and Sip skills development programme initiated at Pupuke Golf Club on Auckland’s North Shore and Omaha Golf Club just north of the city, which combines practice with pinot gris, the Tips and Sips women’s introduction programme at Waipu Golf Club in Northland, or the well-patronised Kiss My Putt Wine Down Wednesdays running at Arrowtown Golf Club in the wine hub of Central Otago.

When the Geraldine club won golf club of the year award in 2021, Nine and Wine was acknowledged as one of the multiple successful initiatives which the club had undertaken by embracing the She Loves Golf ethos. However, Harper said there’s far more to the social aspect aside from the wine.

"Quite a few of our ladies don't even drink. We all just love each other's company though,” Harper said.

Nine and Wine members’ ages range from those in their 40s, through to 75-years-old. Nine and Wine member Susan McNulty has been playing on and off since its conception.

McNulty keeps returning as the nine-hole format is great for relaxing, and allows her to play golf without the pressure of getting everything right down the fairways.

McNulty said: "I can just pick my ball up, ‘cause it is only Nine and Wine."

As the next two players get nearer, golfer Brigitte Barker — of well-known jam manufacturer Barkers of Geraldine — explains: ‘‘Sometimes we play nine, but we always have wine.’’

Another member, Catherine Ford, has been taking part since moving to Geraldine two years ago.

"My late husband told me golf wasn't for me at all,” Ford admits. He had told Ford she couldn't be out there "yahooing", so she hadn't tried again. Nine and Wine had changed all that, adding: "I hit a good one every now and again, but I hit plenty of duff shots as well.’’

Another member, Robynne Fraser had been a horse rider, she had never thought to play golf. After joining Nine and Wine, Fraser had gone on to play with her husband, but she felt nine holes suited women more as they got to take an hour and a half out of their busy schedules … citing: “Three hours was simply too long."

Harper points out that the format shouldn’t be considered as a pathway for getting more members to ultimately playing 18-holes – in the same way that T-20 cricket players are a different breed to test cricket players, or sevens rugby or touch rugby players are wired differently to 15-a-side rugby players.

“Nine and Wine is an entity in its own right,” Harper said.

“While some have graduated to play more holes, and many have gone on to get a golf handicap, one of the great features of Nine and Wine is that these women gain the confidence on the course to enable them to go out and play with other family members – sons, daughters, and spouses.”

Nine and Wine membership now stages its own tournaments – where the greenkeeper has found feather boas snagged in tree branches for weeks later. And their own fundraising events -- hosting a Pink Nine and Wine to support The Breast Cancer Foundation and embarking on a "Nine and Wine goes off course" tour heading en-masse to nearby Methven.

"We went off course, alright,” Harper confessed.

As a progression of Nine and Wine, Geraldine Golf Club is hoping to soon launch ‘The Coffee Club’ – a format which will invite the mothers of kindergarten and school-aged children to try their hand at golf during school hours. Golf New Zealand’s She Loves Golf support network is standing by for the call up to be part of the initiative.