DAWN TO DUSK CHARITY GOLF EVENT

In early 2021 four Taranaki friends decided to take on an epic challenge to raise money for Kidney Kids NZ.  On the fourth-year anniversary of Reeve Barnett donating his kidney to his sister Adelle, him, Adelle’s husband Mick and two friends played all 18 golf courses in Taranaki over two and a half days.  Their hard fought battle got them and a story of chronic kidney disease, dialysis and transplant in a young person featured on Seven Sharp and between that and the support of Taranaki locals and their friends and family they were able to raise over $60,000 for Kidney Kids New Zealand.

Three years on and the same group wanted to undertake something just as challenging but with the opportunity for more people to join in, so Dawn to Dusk for Kidney Kids was born.

On the 21st January over 70 people (ranging from solo’s to teams of four) turned up at dawn to Fitzroy Golf Club to see how many holes of golf they could play in 12 hours.  From adding the running component to their golf (to make Speed Golf) we had individuals who ran their first half or marathon distance while playing golf and had teams complete an amazing number of holes and rounds at insane speeds.  We had seven solo entrants who intended to go on their own for the full 12 hours with three of them vocally chasing down the world record.  All three of them (Jamie Read and Mick McBeth who completed the challenge three years earlier) reached the world record with Shanon Stallard going on to set a new world record of 311(over 17 rounds) holes in 12 hours and running over 100km over that period.

While there was an exceptional performance from all those who participated in the event, we had so many supporters both in raffle items, prizes etc. donated and people who turned up to support the event and most importantly helping us raise almost $30,000 for Kidney Kids.  The organising team were so proud of the outcome of the event with many participants asking to do it again and very proud to be able to support Kidney Kids which is so close to home for the organising team.