Stuff Digital Edition

Greenkeeper an ‘inspiration’

Jane Matthews jane.matthews@stuff.co.nz

Five days a week you’ll find Jason Butler maintaining a waterfront Taranaki golf course, but he has his own way of doing things – he only has one arm.

The 54-year-old uses adapted equipment, and a mix of his left arm, body and tools, to look after the Urenui Golf Club’s greens and fairways.

Butler has been working on the course, north of New Plymouth, for two-and-a-half years, but it doesn’t come from a life-long love of the sport. He only picked up golf after his accident.

Butler lost his right arm after colliding with a truck while riding a farm bike in 1992. He’d just turned 24.

‘‘I was right-handed,’’ Butler said. ‘‘Once it’s gone, you have to adapt.’’

And adapt is what he’s been doing for the past decades.

Prior to the crash, Butler used to work on dairy farms, and at the freezing works, but had been on ACC for nearly three decades when he was told he would have to find a job.

He only got into golf when his mates asked him to come along to the Waitara Golf Club and give it a crack.

Butler ended up playing, and volunteering to help care for the course. Then, the Urenui club approached him to work, and he now does 35 hours a week, across five days.

While he finds a way to use most of the tools, mowers and equipment have been adapted ‘‘to make life easier’’, Butler said.

‘‘Anything with a steering wheel, I’m right,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve got to watch how much physical stuff I do – my shoulders get a bit sore.’’

He joked the hardest part of the job was the ‘‘200-plus bosses’’, or club members, but they’re his biggest fans, too.

Member Colin Gilberd raves about Butler’s work, and he was the greenkeeper at the Pa¯ tea Golf Club for eight years before moving north nine years ago.

‘‘He’s very passionate about the whole thing. He’s just out to please everybody,’’ Gilberd said. ‘‘He’s just a bloody inspiration.’’

News

en-nz

2021-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281582358777406

Stuff Limited