12-Year-Old Wins New Zealand Golf Championship After Playing Just Three Rounds Ever

Bayleigh Teepa-Tarau shocked family and competitors with his performance.

There are stellar debut performances, and then there is what Bayleigh Teepa-Tarau did in the golf tournament at New Zealand’s largest national youth sports competition.

Teepa-Tarau, 12, won the golf event at the Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools Games in Tauranga despite having played just three rounds of golf in his life.

“The thing I love about golf is hitting my driver,” Teepa-Tarau told Newstalk ZB, a national radio network in New Zealand, after his winning round. “I dreamed about coming here and finishing in first place. And I had a lot of fun.”

The competition is played under the Modified Stableford points system, and Teepa-Tarau finished with a score of 87 over three nine-hole rounds—an average of more than a stroke under par per hole.

A native of Tāneatua—a town with 970 residents and no golf course—Teepa-Tarau borrowed his clubs for the competition.

Teepa-Tarau’s family expressed pride in the performance of the young golfer, who has dealt with challenges in school related to his autism.

“I’m so proud of him,” his father, Hemi Tarau, said. “I’m surprised at how well he did because of his autism, but then I’m not surprised. He wasn’t really a sports kid a few years ago but he’s just got right into it now and it has done amazing things for his confidence.”