Dad used to tell me that when I was born, he grabbed one of those little plastic golf woods out of a drinking glass – the kind you get at parties. He put it in my hands, and he said I gripped it perfectly. With a smile. That's where it started.
There has been no family at Tītahi Golf Club with a record like the Brookys. I was born in Tawa. That's our family home. Dad drived from Tawa to Tītahi – not to live there, but to make the club the centre of our lives.
Frank was dedicated. He worked hard to become a scratch golfer at his best. He won the club championship in 1969 and again in 1973. He was club president between 1976 and 1979, and again in 1985–86.
In 1970, while working at Meremere Power Station, he played in a twilight tournament at a local club. Thinking it was an excellent idea, he returned to Tītahi and introduced it – a 9‑hole stableford competition that proved enormously popular.
He coached the rudiments of golf at home before establishing the first junior coaching clinic at the club in 1972. We caddied on Sundays. We learned etiquette.
Our mother Margaret was a good‑fun golfer. She played for the camaraderie, the clubhouse, the drinks, the songs. Not with Dad's intensity. Just with joy. She died of cancer in 2006.
"You have to practise to want people to see your golf. You have to perform for them to watch golf that should be played the right way."
— Frank Brooky
And: "When you play golf, it's good to shake hands at the end of the game. Take your hat off. Go in and sit at the same table. Do your scores. Have a drink. Have something to eat. Have a chat. Say thank you. It was a wonderful day. And go home."
Sometimes, Dad would come back into the clubhouse and say: "Come on, Margaret. Hurry up. All the kids are in the car." Everyone would look at Mum. Her best friend, Helen Poole, would say: "Go on, Margaret." Mum would smile. She'd get in the car. And Dad would moan all the way home about how we all had to wait.
That's how I learned that golf is not just about the swing. It's about the car ride home.
I didn't come from nowhere. I came from a family of golfers. And a mother who smiled.