Former Kelvin Heights Club greenkeeper John Stephens is taking the challenge in his stride - he has managed to secure $10,000 worth of prizes for the September 20 event, including grocery vouchers, heli-skiing passes, rafting trips and day passes to Millbrook and Jacks Point.
While managing a club is a "bit of a change" from managing the greens, Mr Stephens said his experience as a conference manager at Millbrook and as a manager at The Rydges had helped.
The staff at the club are alsoa "great team", giving him plenty of support, he said.
However, the former Australian is out to prove he is the right man for the job - he missed out when the job was advertised earlier in the year.
This time, the club approached him and found he was still keen to do his "dream job".
He has some ideas for the club - there could be room for a "nice restaurant some day" - but will not change the course, which had a distinctive Otago feel, he said.
"It's the course that sets this place apart from the flash courses. I will work with that."
A former school teacher, Mr Stephens has been a member of the club for eight years.
"I am a qualified high school geography teacher but I only did that for a few months. I realised I was too young to be a role model for kids, so I started travelling and I still haven't gone home."
That was 13 years ago, and he cannot see himself leaving Wakatipu, which provides all the golf he wants and the snow sports which are his second passion.
"It's great. I can go boarding in the morning and then come here," he said.
"I have just bought a house in Frankton and when I proposed to my fiancee I told her she could not make me leave the mountains," he said.
The only thing he is worried about is that management might affect his handicap.
