Rick ‘Stumpy’ Johnston in action

SUE WARDS

For anyone who believes Mark Twain’s maxim that "golf is a good walk spoilt”, a few hours in the company of Rick ‘Stumpy’ Johnston is likely to change your mind.

Stumpy (the name bestowed on him at boarding school hints at his height) has just been renewed as club captain of the Lake Hawea Golf Club - his fifth year in the position. A great ambassador for golf, Stumpy has been a member for 10 years and as club captain has introduced some new tournaments to "mix things up a bit”.

"It’s just a matter of trying to keep people interested in playing golf. Some people think it’s too serious,” Stumpy said. Twilight games on Thursdays, ‘Ambrose’ tournaments and other games throughout the year "put a bit of fun into it”, he added.

Hawea also plays interclub with seven other local clubs, including Millbrook. Hawea (with a nine hole, 70 par course) beat Millbrook (a 27 hole course) a few years ago. Since then, "we call them our sister club - because the courses are so similar,” Stumpy said.

He can take the game seriously when he has to, but he loves the social aspect of golf. Hawea likes to put on a free meal for the visiting clubs ("It’s just the little things that make it go easier”) and unsuspecting visitors might be surprised by awards like ‘the person who played the most golf’ (read: the worst golfer of the day). "It’s a good talking point in the club.”

In Otago, golf clubs are the only sports clubs where numbers are increasing, Stumpy reckons. There are a few younger players coming through, perhaps because of more golf on TV, Stumpy said, and the handicaps help to mix people with different skills and ages. But Hawea, with its 50 or so members, is always keen to welcome more people.

"I play quite a bit of golf,” Stumpy said. Three or four times a week: nine holes on Tuesday and Thursday, and 18 holes on Sunday. Yes, he admitted, he probably gets a game in on Saturday too. His handicap is "about average” at 13 (actually, in the top third of New Zealand players).

Stumpy grew up where South Otago becomes Southland - Waikaia, on Glenary Station where his father was head shepherd. "I used to go out fishing and rabbit shooting every night after school.”

When he started at boarding school in Oamaru (Waitaki Boys High), he moved from a school of 30 to a class of 30.

After his parents moved to Wanaka, and he was working as a barman at "the Gardies” (the Gardens Tavern) in Dunedin, he would spend summers here - and even came over to play rugby (he was on the winning B-grade team in 2004).

He moved here in 2000 and worked as a barman at Barrows Pub for two or three years, before working with his father (Skip Johnston), chopping down trees. (Stumpy the lumberjack? "Yep - Stumpy working with bloody trees.”) He’s been a builder with Breens Construction for the past eight years.

Stumpy’s life isn’t all about golf. He does "a bit of hunting” too - actually quite a bit, it seems. He got back into hunting in his mid-20s and said it was quite something to go back to his home patch at Waikaia to shoot his first deer. (He and a mate often hunt off the Waikaia Bush Road.)

He also goes to the West Coast for a couple of weeks for the Roar, and has "locked eyes” with a few stags, and spends a few weeks in the remote Waiatoto Valley every year. "It’s pretty awesome - just being on the West Coast, and being in the bush.”

Stumpy turned 40 this week ("1977 was a good breeding year”), and he celebrated with a game of golf, with more planned this weekend.

But Stumpy agrees Mark Twain was right about golf - some days. "There’s always luck in golf - you’ve got good luck or bad luck.”

"When you do play that one round, where everything goes good, you think: ‘I can do it.’ And you’ve done it once, why can’t you keep doing it? It’s pretty much a mind game.”

"If you’re in the right frame of mind, and you have that good day, you go back a week later and shoot over par - and think how did that happen?”

There’s a whole heap of factors, Stumpy said, in deciding how you’ll play. "Some people have a few beers and come right - then you have a few more and it’s terrible.” Heineken drinkers think they play better, he’s noticed.

Town is a lot busier since Stumpy moved here 17 years ago. "There’s a lot more people around. You’re losing the friendliness a bit. But,” he said, "everything changes!”

In the short time this writer spent with Stumpy, at least four people stopped to greet him enthusiastically. With Stumpy in town, friendliness isn’t going anywhere. And golf - that’s here to stay too.

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