Dad brought golf into our house. But the courses outside Tītahi — Manor Park, Hutt, Boulcott — that's where I found my own game.
Before the European Tour. Before the card. Before the trophies on the mantelpiece. There were the practice grounds of the Hutt Valley, and a young woman who simply would not stop hitting balls.
Manor Park Golf Club was the first step beyond Tītahi. Then Hutt Golf Club — later known as Boulcott Farm Heritage Golf Club — became central to the amateur years. These weren't glamorous venues. They were working courses where you could get onto the range early and stay until the light went. That's what I did.
📍 Hutt Golf Club, Lower Hutt — the club that would later document Lynnette's 1998 Austrian Open win and course-record 64 in their season report.
The Interprovincial tournament was the benchmark. It was where the regions sent their best women golfers and found out exactly where you stood. Representing Wellington — playing for your province — meant something. It still does.
The Stylemaster Interprovincial. Wellington. You wore your colours and you meant it.
The national team followed. New Zealand. The black blazer. The silver fern. There's a photograph in the archive — the NZ women's team descending a staircase, a handwritten "NEW ZEALAND" sign above them, everybody signing each other's programmes. That's the moment you understand you've been selected for something larger than yourself.
In 1991 — the year before the first national amateur title — Lynnette was already being written about in the press. "National women's amateur golf champion Lynette Brooky has returned to Wellington from Auckland... she will be available to play for Wellington in the Stylemaster interprovincial tournament in May." The results were coming. The recognition was building.
Back-to-back New Zealand Amateur Champion — 1992 and 1993. Then the Australian Women's Amateur Stroke Play Championship. Then runner-up at the British Amateur at Gullane.
— The amateur record that announced a professional career
The Queen Sirikit Cup, 1993 — the Asia-Pacific Amateur Ladies Golf Team Championship, The Vines Resort, Perth. Lynnette won the individual title. New Zealand competed as a team. It was the kind of result that made the selectors sit up.
The Tasman Cup. Lynnette and Susan Farron made their debuts for New Zealand — the women's golf competition against Australia. Everything was building toward the day she would make qualifying school and cross the water for good.
All of this — the interprovincials, the amateur titles, the international appearances — was funded partly by grants and applications. One funding document in the archive requests $6,000 in financial support for upcoming international tournament participation, outlining the impressive amateur achievements to date. A young woman, making the case for herself.
The amateur years didn't lead to the professional career. They were the professional career — just unpaid.