Dylan Lindstrom: Royal Wellington General Manager on the 2026 Women's Amateur Asia-Pacific Championship being held in Wellington

Golf's 2026 Women's Amateur Asia-Pacific (WAAP) championship is heading to the Royal Wellington Golf Club this February, with the backing of the R&A.

It's the first time the WAAP will be staged in New Zealand.

To find out about the preparations and the associated events and activities around the tournament, Adam Cooper spoke with Royal Wellington General Manager Dylan Lindstrom.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All the countdowns well and truly on till the biggest

(00:02):
golfing event of the summer and for quite a few
summers for Wellington and New Zealand. With the backing of
the RNA, the Royal Wellington Club is staging the twenty
twenty six Women's Amateur Asia Pacific Championships in February. So, yes, February,
it means we're only three months out, so to check
in with preparations and how the build up's going. Royal
Wellington General Manager Dylan Linstrom joins me. Now, morning to you, Dylan.

(00:24):
I bet it feels it's all getting pretty real now.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thanks for having me on adam. Very exciting time for us,
where as we lead into Christmas and we lose a
bit of preparation period through that time, really important time
for us to be getting all our t's crossed and
our eyes dotted.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
What's the main aspect of preparation involved in this for
the club?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
The stage, A lot of planning, securing all the infrastructure
needs that we need to put on the championship of
the scale's televised live to over hundred countries of the
TV towers course signage. In terms of the course itself.
A lot of the preparation started back in autumn and

(01:11):
now we're just kind of fine tuning getting ready. Once
summer hits and we're not growing so much, then it'll
really just be getting it ready for performance golf in
that week or two leading up to it.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I mean, give us the significance of this. This is
an event that's going to feature some of the world's
best young golfers. I mean in terms of how big
this is for for Wellington having this event in town.
Just just give us your take on that.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, I think it's a big for New Zealand actually Adam,
not just Wellington, and great for women's golf. So the
event started back in twenty eighteen. The men's version of
it has been going considerably longer. There's a really big
push by the RNA to grow and support women's golf.
What's really exciting about this event for me is that

(02:00):
the golfers that you're going to see and the best
golfers in the world come out of the Asia Pacific region.
So we're really going to see future stars in the
next three, four or five years. These young women that
are going to be playing in this championship. We will
go on to see winning major events, playing on the
LPGA Tour, and we're going to get the opportunity to

(02:20):
say that we saw them before they were famous, so
to speak.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Absolutely, And given that you know young female golfers often
peak and they're mid to late teens, you know, the
ones coming here probably might be far away from becoming
household names around the world.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Right, Yeah, that's dead right. I think the men's game,
they really don't peak until late twenties, maybe mid twenties
to early thirties, and a lot of the cases, obviously
there's been some anomalies there Tiger Woods and being one
of them, Rory Micklroy. But for a lot of the
household names in the men's game, they do peak much later,
and in the women's game it's much younger. They're talking

(02:56):
about retiring at thirty years of age.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, crazy, isn't it. Terms of the club, everyone that's
been to Royal Willington knows that's a pretty beautiful setting.
So how much work do you have to do to
be confident that it's going to look good on TV
and things.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, the first thing we have to do is make
sure that it looks good for our members, and guests
and visitors as well, Adams. So the good thing is
we've got a pretty good platform to start from. We
did have the RNA team out last year and early
this year, and they've come in and had a look
and they do have some requests as to what they
want to see leading up to the championship, and I'm

(03:31):
pleased to report that there wasn't really too much on
their list at all that was beyond really business as
usual for us. So there is a lot more effort
that goes in when you get to tournament week, where
we might mow the greens and or roll them, say
four times a week through a growing season, maybe a
little bit more or less depending on the weather conditions,

(03:51):
whereas during the week of the event, it's every day
every surface has been cut and prepared and making sure
it's absolutely perfect for a champion of the standing.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
How much of a game changer is that the RNA
being involved here there worldwide powerhouse, everyone knows them. How
significant is that in terms of what you're able to
deliver with their backing.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
A lot more people say yes when the RNA are
behind it, Adam, That's probably not insignificant. People are keen
to be a part of it and keen to support it.
They do have a great reputation. They've done a lot
of work to try and grow the game. We see
that certainly within the industry, the work that they do
with Golf New Zealand, and then that flows through to

(04:35):
the industry organizations as well. But also, you know, we'll
call it customer facing with championships like this, the sustainability
programs that they have women's golf, inclusivity in golf. They're
really big supporters and theyre spending a lot of money
to really grow the game and make sure that it
is a game for everyone.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
And Dylan, in terms of what's on the horizon for this,
it's there's an academy No. Twenty four so Monday week
tell us a bit about this. We're going to see
some pretty special golf activities happening as part of the
build up.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah. So this is a new initiative by the RNA
and it's part of their strategy of growing the game.
They bought it into the first time last year with
this women's event and they have the Women's Amateur Asia
Pacific Academy. They're bringing in players from different regions. The
focus this year is the South Pacific, so I think
the Pacific Islands, and also domestically here in New Zealand,

(05:33):
they'll be bringing in players that have participated in this
event before and perhaps not reached the top of the leaderboard.
So certainly developing nations, those that are from from a
world ranking perspective haven't quite got to the level of
qualifying for this event yet. And then domestically we've got

(05:54):
some local talent coming through that we hope one day
will be representing New Zealand in this event. So they're
bringing them together for a week with some of the
best resources that the RNA can throw at it to
really show them what they need to do, what the
standards are at that highest level to achieve. So it's
a really great way of them having a bit of

(06:15):
legacy just belong beyond having a championship here, but actually
developing that future pathway as well.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Great and speaking of which, how can the golfing scene,
you know, not just at your club, but around Wellington,
around New Zealand, you know, benefits or capitalize on having
this event.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Here, I think to the local economy that you know,
there will be some investment in the local economy. I
think the really exciting thing is it's actually free to enter,
so sorry, free to come through the gates during the
week and watch this championship. It's not a ticketed event.
It's not something that's usual for this event. So last

(06:53):
year in Vietnam it was all just television focused. We
really want to throw our gates open and make sure
that the local community can come in see these players firsthand,
have a look at this championship, look at the scale
of it. And in my opinion, I think our property
is what it's just a beautiful property as well, So

(07:15):
if you've never been through our gates before, it's a
great time to come and have a look. It's very
much like an arboretum, there's beautiful trees, or like a
golf course weaving through a botanical garden.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Almost yeah, great, And I know you're going to do
some fun things like food trucks and make it a
nice fun environment. Have you got some sort of expectations
or targets as to how many people you'd like to
attend through that week.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
We'd love to see ten thousand people through the gates,
which is an ambitious goal. As I said in previous operations,
of this championship, the focus has very much been on
the TV. The RNA of really supported and are encouraging
us to bring the community in. They were very happy
to hear that that's something we wanted to do. So
we are creating a fan village. We're very lucky we

(08:00):
got eighteen championship holes. We've also got another nine hole
course as well, so we're going to reappropriate the first
fairway of our Terra's course and we're setting up a
fan village with food, trucks, activities. There'll be she Loves
Golf opportunities for women golfers or those that want to
experience it. And I think the difference between the men's

(08:22):
version we hosted in twenty seventeen in this one is
I think the last one really appealed to golfers and
this one will really appeal to golfers too. Man, woman, child.
If you're a golfer, you're going to want to come
along and see this. But I think also it will
appeal to a broader audience, hopefully families, and that's what
we want to see coming through the gates, more women

(08:43):
coming through understanding what golf's about, what are club's about,
and we hope to hook them into what it's such
a great game.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
How's it looking in terms of getting volunteers, whether they're
members or non members, and people that I guess you
want to be involved in the tournament, but also works
in the help that they'll be able there to be
there to assist as well.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, we do need a lot of volunteers for an
event like this, everything from caddies right through to marshaling,
to standing at a gate and making sure people with
the right credentials work through raking bunkers scoring. The good
thing is the day we announced the event, I started
getting emails in my inbox from people that have supported

(09:24):
tournaments and championships that we've had previously, saying, as soon
as I'm in what can I do? Sign me up?
I'll do anything. So we've got a good number of
volunteers so far, in the order of about two hundred
and fifty registers, and we've gone out into the golf
wider golf community, a lot of great support from my
fellow clubs around the region and the being being great

(09:47):
in getting that message out to all the golfers in
the region.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Your communication lines open. If people don't want to find
a way to get involved absolutely.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
I'm just working on getting a pop up on our
website at the moment so you'll be able to follow
a link and register your intro. Otherwise, we'd always welcome
an email if anyone out there is interested in volunteering,
send it through to Royal Wellington Golf Club.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, wonderful, Dylan. It's very exciting, so thanks for filling
us on as to how all the preps going. It
sounds like it's certainly going to be the place to
become February nine till fifteen next year, so good luck
with the rest of the preparation on the side of Christmas.
I know there's some other fun events being planned over
the next few weeks as well, So all the very best.
Thanks for chatting, and I'm sure we'll be speaking again
on this in the very near future.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Sounds great. Thanks for your time, Adam.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
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