And one or two even upstaged their more illustrious professional partners, including diminutive Queenstown teenager Sungwoo Han, who birdied the tough, uphill par-5 ninth while Josh Geary had to settled for a bogey 6.
Han (13), who plays off a 7.7 handicap at the Queenstown Golf Club's Kelvin Heights course, hit his approach to within about 2m and then slotted a tricky downhill putt, much to Geary's delight.
The event, known as the New Zealand Golf junior challenge, was held for the first time as part of the New Zealand Open, and resulted in 24 of Otago's most promising young golfers accompanying eight New Zealand professionals play a team stableford event.
The youngsters were all under 16 and had handicaps ranging from 2 to 20.
Professional Grant Waite was full of praise for the concept. "It's great. I wish they had such a thing when I was a kid.
"It was very enjoyable and my kids were great; well behaved and good little players, too."
The winning team, with 45 points, was Phil Tataurangi's group from Chisholm Park, Dunedin - Cody McMullan, Conor Jamieson and Hamish Calder - which edged out Richard Lee's team of Thomas Griffin, Sam Doran and Kade Broderick, from St Clair, and Brad Iles' group of Laura Hoskin, Ryan Western and Noah Van der Geest, from Arrowtown, with 44 points.
Other professionals to take part were Steve Alker, Doug Batty and Gareth Paddison.
