SPOTLIGHT
T
he Trick Shot girl. A Kiwi with a twist. Call her what you want, but this New Zealander is flipping and bouncing her way through the golf world. 32-year-old phenom Tania Tare has multi-year contracts with Adidas, PING, Mercedes, OnCore, 2nd Swing, TROON and Audemars Piguet. ESPN & SportsCenter post her trickshot videos. She’s been on Tosh.0, the James Corden Show, and Mario Lopez. She’s done a commercial for Honda. Sounds too good to be true. But it wouldn’t have happened if not for a freak accident that left her arm dangling by a tendon. SHATTERED GLASS, SHATTERED DREAMS
Tania
TARE
“The Trick Shot Girl” By Monica Malpass, Contributing Writer
18
GOLF RESORT & DESTINATION MAGAZINE | 2022
She was just 11. Tennis, not golf, was her first game. “I first picked up a tennis racket when I was 1 1/2 years old. My whole family played tennis,” Tare explains. She had natural talent and determination. By 10 years old she had won several club championships and a national title in New Zealand. She dreamed of going pro. But fate intervened. Tare and her brother were horseplaying at home when she fell against a closed window, shattering it and severely slicing her left arm. Surgeons at Children’s Hospital of Auckland said her arm needed amputating. “I went under thinking I’d wake up with one arm. It was the first time I ever saw my mom cry,” Tare says. She woke up post-surgery in a haze and instinctively reached over to feel her amputated nub. “I couldn’t believe it! I still had a left arm. My mom had pleaded with the doctor and somehow they had saved it!” Tare says. But her left hand was frozen open like a claw. Still she didn’t give up on tennis. As a right-handed player, her swing remained strong. She did two years of therapy to rebuild her left hand. It was better, but not perfect. The determined 13-year-old signed up for a tennis tournament. But it took seven tosses per serve to get the ball up. She laid down her racket. It was over. Tare was crushed. She stepped away from sports for a full year. “My mom told me not to dwell on the past but to ‘Enjoy the Now. You’ll figure out a new life,’” Tania recalls.
