Cut-Throat Competition Even at the Dinner Table

“Back on the island, Heatley has brought his son Josh and some of Josh’s friends up from Auckland. They head off to play pool, though if Josh was with only his father, they would most likely first play chess. No chance for a competition slides by the pair. If they swim in the surf, they compete to see who can bodysurf furthest up the beach. They are keen on poker. In their Auckland house, at Maui and here on Moturua, chessboards are always set. Josh maintains in his head a lifetime tally of thousands of chess games with his father. The wins are, for now, slightly in his father’s favour. Cut-throat competition is the norm between Heatley and his sons. The Takapuna house where the children grew up had a tennis court adjoining the neighbour’s property. Ben, the eldest of the four children, recalls his brothers, his father and him playing tennis. ‘And, hell, those poor people next door! The moment we’re on the tennis court it’s all on, all of us yelling and all of us arguing because each of us wants to win.’ More often than not, the matches would end with two people not talking to each other. ‘But the next day, we’d put it behind us and do it over again.’ His sister is competitive too, he says, but displays it differently.”

“At no time after or before those successes did Heatley ever consider that his calling was to be a professional golfer. He wants to win every competition, match or game he plays, no matter what it is, but that is not why he plays. His primary motivations are recreation, companionship and fitness. ‘He’s done extremely well at golf, with a terrible grip,’ says Monty Moynihan, who first met Heatley the day Heatley turned up as a 14-year-old at Manor Park. The pair have remained in contact ever since. ‘Craig has talent and still plays a very good game of golf. And he competes. You play him for $5 and it’s like it’s his last. You feel like reminding him that it’s not going to hurt him if he loses but for him that’s not the point. He’s there to win.’”