Since retiring in 2013, however, Norm Thompson’s become active in golf governance — he’s had six years on Golf NZ’s board and is in his second year chairing it.
"Queenstown is the home of golf in NZ," he states unequivocally.
And fittingly, since Millbrook’s the home of the NZ Open, it’s also his home.
He first bought into Millbrook, initially in a villa, 26 years ago at the invitation of then-boss Graham Smolenski, and has largely lived there for the past 10years.
Thompson, who’s played golf for about 40 years since retiring from rugby, is a 12-handicapper who plays once a week, often with his wife, Jenny, "but my goal is to play twice a week".
He loves both the challenge of the game and the enjoyment of being with people.
He’s certainly no slouch, and in 2022, when the Millbrook Classic was held as a Covid substitute for the Open, he and local pro/Millbrook member Ben Campbell were the pro-am’s runners-up.
Thompson raves about the resort’s golf set-up for members.
And as for the Open, which Golf NZ owns, he says "we’ll continue to run that here for as long as Millbrook want to continue to support it".
"The Ishii family have just been fantastic as far as the support for the Open is concerned, I mean they’re giving us this course basically for two weeks in the peak of the peak season."
He’s also delighted this year’s field’s the best yet, and says it was significant the Open had its first winner from Japan last year as, when the event started here, an aim was to increase Japanese trade and tourism.
Though NZ golf membership was declining at one stage — "generally, if you go back, say, 10 years, golf was played by old guys with silver hair" — he says golf’s in the best shape it’s ever been.
Golf club membership’s up 6.9% to 152,000 with over half a million rounds played last month.
Junior ranks are up over 20% — "if we can get kids hitting balls, then they’ll learn to grow into the game".
With many people time-poor, there’s been an upswing to nine-hole golf, he adds — "we have a marketing programme called ‘Make Time Play 9"’.
Thompson also credits Golf NZ’s high-performance team for fostering so much young talent.
Women’s golf has been growing, too, possibly inspired by Dame Lydia Ko — he says one of his goals while chairman is to bring back an NZ Women’s Open.
NZ, he says, "is now being recognised as a really significant golfing destination with great courses".
And helping that, he notes, has been significant private investment in building courses.
