Magazine: The Hills Home Of the New Zealand Open
By Parkland Press in Golf on 26th Jun 2008 12:55
The New Zealand Open came to Queenstown for the first time in its long and distinguished history. Parkland and Toro are proud to be associated
with The Hills – the home of the tournament for 3 years
It’s more than 50 years since Michael Hill’s passion for golf and entrepreneurial talents first merged. As a student at Whangarei Boys high school, the enterprising teenager created the Red Star golf club in the backyard of the house he grew up in at 28 Manse street. It wasn’t a particularly big backyard, but that didn’t deter young Michael, who’d been introduced to the game by his parents who were members of the Mt Denby club. His mother Billie was a quality player, his father Dick enthusiastic but erratic.
With a vision that would project him as one of the most influential New Zealanders of his time, Michael set to with a lawnmower and 18 baked bean cans, forming a mini pitch and putt course, the cans being sunk into the turf to form the holes. The red star Golf club flourished. he charged 1s 6d (about 15 cents in today’s money) for a round and regularly had about 15 school mates chipping and putting away with his parents’ clubs. each session would end with young Hill on the microphone presenting prizes to the winners. The man who in 2007 has audaciously snared New Zealand Golf’s most prestigious event would acknowledge that that was where “the seed was sown”.
When Hill and his wife Christine opted to attend the movie's in Whangarei one spring evening in 1979, wearied from decorating the beautiful home they had established overlooking the inner harbour, they little suspected it would be the night that would change their lives forever. The house was massive, built of cedar and blocks in a hexagonal design, with huge windows. Because they’d overrun their budget and exhausted available funds, they were completing the interior painting themselves.
It was the fumes from the painting that drove them to take in a movie. they dropped their children, Mark and Emma, at Christine’s parents’ house and
cruised on into the town centre. Later, when picking up the kids, the phone rang. It was their neighbour. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” she said, “but your house is burning down.” When the hills arrived at the scene, their dream house was one incredible conflagration, the cedar and butynol roofing membrane proving a lethal mix. Half of Whangarei, it seemed, had turned out, watching in awe as the house burned inexorably to the ground. What can you do in a circumstance like that, with your beautiful home beyond saving? What Hill did was to walk to a high vantage point where he wrote down his plan for the future. He was 40 years old and he didn’t consider he had achieved a hell of a lot, having spent 23 years working for his uncle in the family jewellery business. As he stood above the burning embers of his home, his future suddenly crystallised itself. He found a business card in his back pocket and wrote on it buy Uncle’s Business.
Reflecting on that traumatic evening 28 years ago, Hill says the fire could have spelt the end of the world for him. Instead, it provided the inspiration for the future. “I had a vision as I stood there,” he says. “From that moment, I knew what I wanted to achieve.”
Becoming Michael Hill Jeweller, the iconic character who in 1987 had a profile in New Zealand second only to the prime minister, wouldn’t be achieved without causing considerable angst within his family circle. Firing himself with determination to launch his own jewellery enterprise was all very well, but the whole family was inexorably involved in his uncle arthur Fisher’s long-standing business. And Fishers was recognised as Whangarei’s leading jewellery company. Through a fortuitous circumstance, Hill had funding available to either purchase an existing business or establish something new, courtesy of a friend who had inherited £1.5 million and who was prepared to back him. Hill twice offered to buy his uncle’s business, upping the ante substantially the second time, but Fisher resolutely declined to sell. So hill, who was now bursting to express himself in the business world, was left with
no option but to go it alone.
He eventua
lly purchased McDonald’s grocery store for $19,500, a record price for downtown Whangarei at the time. His backer was true to his word and by Easter of 1980 the transaction was complete. Within two and a half weeks Michael Hill Jeweller was in business... with seven staff members who had been lured across from Fishers! The opening sale was a legendary occasion for Whangarei and set in motion the Michael Hill formula for success. His revolutionary selling techniques would spread throughout the country and to Australia and eventually Canada. The formula included dramatically different store designs, a product range devoted exclusively to jewellery and high impact television advertising featuring none other than Michael Hill himself.
He had a vision of launching seven stores in seven years. When he decided to relocate to Australia, he was close to achieving that goal, having established six stores, in Whangarei, Hastings, Lower Hutt, Takapuna, Palmerston North and Hamilton, with another on the horizon and his original backer having long since departed the scene. When the company listed on the stock exchange in 1987, it raised $3 million. That was, of course, the year of the calamitous sharemarket crash and Hill is immensely proud of the fact that he is the only survivor of the companies that listed that year. His ‘moving abroad’ sale in Whangarei was quite an event, his store turning over in six weeks the equivalent of what others would handle in a year.
Australia was a completely different challenge, but Michael Hill Jeweller loved challenges. “We took the aussies completely by surprise,” he says. “We succeeded because we were different. I went on television again, doing my wacky ads. I was perceived as a car salesman, which probably didn’t do my reputation any good, but the three shops we started with all took off. We lured people by offering them a sapphire ring at cost price. Now we have 140 shops in Australia.”
While Hill’s jewellery stores were booming, the Warehouse came unstuck when it ventured into Australia. “That,” says the shrewd businessman, “is because they bought into a chain that wasn’t working. We offered Australians something excitingly new.” Michael Hill Jewellers have since set up in Canada, where the operation was until recently administered by Hill’s daughter Emma, who is now back in New Zealand. They researched the local market before opening their doors and found that Canadian women are not as independent as New Zealand women, men making most of the purchases. Canadians prefer four claw settings rather than eight and white diamonds rather than yellow. “We learned so much in our research,” says Hill. “While it was important to adapt to the local market, one thing we didn’t change was our basic philosophy to keep the operation simple and to continue concentrating on our area of expertise. We had once tried to branch out into shoes, but that was unsuccessful, so we decided to focus one hundred per
cent on the business we knew most about, jewellery.”
When the newest store was opened in Alberta, the outside temperature was minus 30 degrees Celsius. Emma was concerned no one would venture outdoors to the opening, despite extensive newspaper advertising and the offer of a one carat diamond for one dollar, but at opening time 400 people were queued up outside the store. Michael Hill Jewellers currently has 190 stores in New Zealand, Australia and Canada with a vision for 1000 stores by 2022. The UK is the next market to be probed. Not wanting to overstay their welcome in Australia and unwilling to become citizens of that country, the Hills chose to return to New Zealand in 1992. It wasn’t their native far north that beckoned, however, but rather a spectacularly beautiful part of the country that had captured their hearts from the first time they visited it, Queenstown. They wanted to try something different.
That something different, which would manifest itself in a sensational manner neither the Hills nor the golfing fraternity of New Zealand could ever have visualised, began quietly enough at Spinnaker Bay on the Frankton arm of Lake Wakatipu. While the scenery was breathtaking, the property was compact. The Hills wanted something more expansive. Their saviour came knocking on the door in the form of enterprising real estate agent Bob Jack. He’d heard a whisper the Hills could be in the market for something special. They looked first at Kelvin Heights but found nothing appropriate. Lake Hayes was more promising, but again nothing hit the mark. “Well,” said Jack, “there’s a deer farm near Arrowtown that could possibly interest you, although the buildings are awfully run down.” The moment the Hills stepped on to the property they fell in love with it. Never mind the broken down buildings; the scenery was to die for. The 180 degree view that swept from Crown Hill past the delightful former gold mining settlement of Arrowtown to the renowned ski resort of Coronet Peak and on to the peerless Remarkables completely dazzled them. Directly across the road linking Lake Hayes with Arrowtown, a mere 5-iron away, was Millbrook, one of the snazziest golf courses in the land and where Hill immediately became a member.
“There was never any doubt about where we wanted to spend the rest of our lives, from the moment we took in a view that, I have to say, we found absolutely breathtaking,” says Hill. “Christine reckons it’s one of the rare occasions since she met me that I was lost for words!” An 18-hole golf course that could stage the New Zealand Open was not on the five-year, 10-year or even 20-year plan. The 138 acres the Hills initially purchased (that would subsequently expand to 500 acres as neighbouring properties were bought up) was simply to allow them to build their dream home and install a putting green that would pretty soon expand into a three-green pitch and putt area.
The pitch and putt zone soon took on a life of its own. Ever enterprising, Hill established three tees for each green, effectively creating a nine-hole minicourse. With his extrovert personality, he quickly buddied up with the various personalities who belonged to, or regularly visited, Millbrook and it was a logical progression for him to invite them across to Hillbrook, as it became affectionately known, for a ‘shoot-out’ after they’d completed their serious 18 holes. Such celebrated golfers as Bob (now Sir Bob) Charles, Greg Turner, Phil Tataurangi, Steve Alker and Grant Moorhead became regulars, the host adding special appeal to the occasions by presenting magnums of wine to the leading performers.
The three-hole pitch and putt zone was restrictive, so Hillbrook was expanded to a five-hole short course that burgeoned into a significant annual
charity fund-raising event. Tents were erected, wine tasting introduced and celebrity All Blacks, Black Caps and Silver Ferns became involved. It became
a newsworthy occasion that attracted media from near and far. Paul Holmes popped in one year, Mike Hosking another, and TV One and TV3 annually
garnered material for their news programmes. Proceeds were donated to Raleigh International, the UK based youth development organisation that helps people of all backgrounds and nationalities to discover their full potential.
Hillbrook, notwithstanding its celebrity status, to this point was nothing more than an adjunct of Millbrook, a place where zany things happened, where fun
was the order of the day. It was John Darby, Millbrook’s course designer, who planted the first seed that would lead to the Hill property becoming a serious golf course. Hill had approached him about expanding the existing six-hole layout to include a par four, with the intention of making the mini-course a little more challenging. Darby visualised a much grander picture. After assessing the entire property, he put it to Hill that he could, and should, create a full 18-hole course. “We could do it for four million dollars,” he boldly assured the property owner and golf enthusiast.
“We didn’t complete it for four millions dollars, although it was a good try!” admitted Hill as he surveyed his completed masterpiece last month.
“I’m not prepared to reveal how much it did cost – it’s my best kept secret. Christine doesn’t know, or I’d be in big trouble. What I can say is that we’ve probably broken every rule in the book about how you establish a new golf course but we’ve ended up with something truly unique, something we can all be immensely proud of.” With Darby acting as designer, Hill initially placed his gardener Sebastian Mead in charge of the bunkers. “My gardener, for god’s sake! He visualised the shapes.” Mead would later be joined by Ian Douglas, the former greenkeeper at Millbrook. The pair are responsible for creating the 90-plus bunkers on the course. “They’ve done a magnificent job,” says Hill. They certainly have. The bunkers blend beautifully with the environment and look as though they have been part of the landscape for years. One of them stretches to over half an acre. The silty soil of Arrowtown ensures they hold together perfectly while being cut and shaped. They have been filled with sand brought in from Oamaru, a special sand that never changes colour or blows away. They drain superbly too. In places like Auckland, where there is a largely clay base, water accumulates in bunkers after heavy rain.
Not here. Hill lavishes praise on Mead who, he says, has sculpted them brilliantly, to the extent that Sir Bob Charles is on record as declaring them
the best bunkers on any course in New Zealand.
End Of Part 1 Part 2 will feature next week
Parkland is the exclusive New Zealand agent for a range of internationally proven brands like Toro, TyCrop, Traxmaster, Pope, Otterbine, Motorola and Irrinet. We work proudly with a broad range customers including New Zealand’s world ranking golf courses and sportsfields, local government, landscapers and even the DIY enthusiast. For more information on what’s happening at Parkland go to www.parkland.co.nz
Post your own comment on this article
With a vision that would project him as one of the most influential New Zealanders of his time, Michael set to with a lawnmower and 18 baked bean cans, forming a mini pitch and putt course, the cans being sunk into the turf to form the holes. The red star Golf club flourished. he charged 1s 6d (about 15 cents in today’s money) for a round and regularly had about 15 school mates chipping and putting away with his parents’ clubs. each session would end with young Hill on the microphone presenting prizes to the winners. The man who in 2007 has audaciously snared New Zealand Golf’s most prestigious event would acknowledge that that was where “the seed was sown”.
cruised on into the town centre. Later, when picking up the kids, the phone rang. It was their neighbour. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” she said, “but your house is burning down.” When the hills arrived at the scene, their dream house was one incredible conflagration, the cedar and butynol roofing membrane proving a lethal mix. Half of Whangarei, it seemed, had turned out, watching in awe as the house burned inexorably to the ground. What can you do in a circumstance like that, with your beautiful home beyond saving? What Hill did was to walk to a high vantage point where he wrote down his plan for the future. He was 40 years old and he didn’t consider he had achieved a hell of a lot, having spent 23 years working for his uncle in the family jewellery business. As he stood above the burning embers of his home, his future suddenly crystallised itself. He found a business card in his back pocket and wrote on it buy Uncle’s Business.
lly purchased McDonald’s grocery store for $19,500, a record price for downtown Whangarei at the time. His backer was true to his word and by Easter of 1980 the transaction was complete. Within two and a half weeks Michael Hill Jeweller was in business... with seven staff members who had been lured across from Fishers! The opening sale was a legendary occasion for Whangarei and set in motion the Michael Hill formula for success. His revolutionary selling techniques would spread throughout the country and to Australia and eventually Canada. The formula included dramatically different store designs, a product range devoted exclusively to jewellery and high impact television advertising featuring none other than Michael Hill himself.
cent on the business we knew most about, jewellery.”
“There was never any doubt about where we wanted to spend the rest of our lives, from the moment we took in a view that, I have to say, we found absolutely breathtaking,” says Hill. “Christine reckons it’s one of the rare occasions since she met me that I was lost for words!” An 18-hole golf course that could stage the New Zealand Open was not on the five-year, 10-year or even 20-year plan. The 138 acres the Hills initially purchased (that would subsequently expand to 500 acres as neighbouring properties were bought up) was simply to allow them to build their dream home and install a putting green that would pretty soon expand into a three-green pitch and putt area.
was the order of the day. It was John Darby, Millbrook’s course designer, who planted the first seed that would lead to the Hill property becoming a serious golf course. Hill had approached him about expanding the existing six-hole layout to include a par four, with the intention of making the mini-course a little more challenging. Darby visualised a much grander picture. After assessing the entire property, he put it to Hill that he could, and should, create a full 18-hole course. “We could do it for four million dollars,” he boldly assured the property owner and golf enthusiast.
