Lifetime Achievement Award for Sir Bob Charles

Sir Bob Charles has been given special recognition at the annual "Say When Halberg Awards" for 2003. Sir Bob was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the awards held in February at the Christchurch Convention Centre. Phil Tataurangi had the honour of making the presentation.

For more than 40 years, the name of Bob Charles has been synonymous with an understated excellence in golf, with unflappability and with an enduring capacity to be a flagbearer for his sport. He entered the national consciousness at the age of 18 in 1954 when, at Wellington's Heretaunga course, he outplayed the wiser and more experienced Australians Peter Thompson and Bruce Crampton to win the New Zealand Open as an amateur entrant. Nine years later, after only three years on the burgeoning professional circuits of the United States and Europe, he won golf's greatest prize, the British Open, in a playoff at the Royal Lytham and St Anne's course, from American Phil Rodgers. Thirty years later, Charles won the Senior British Open on the same course.

Whilst his exploits on the worlds golf courses are well documented, his home and heart remain in New Zealand and he continues to support New Zealand golf at grass-roots levels through contributions to the Golf Foundation and Scholarship Awards.

Sir Bob was joined at the awards by Lady Verity Charles and senior members of the Board of the New Zealand PGA.

Pictured above from L-R: Jim Clelland, Richard Ellis, Sir Bob & Lady Verity Charles, Dennis Clark & Garth Stirrat