There are not too many things in life that top a round of golf with your best mates.
However, one thing that certainly does is playing a round with your best mates at Royal Sydney Golf Club alongside tour pro Jordan Zunic in the Emirates Australian Open pro-am.
At 3:30pm yesterday afternoon Nick Carey received the call notifying him that he had won a pro-am experience for himself and two guests.
Based in Singleton in the Hunter Valley, Carey had a long drive ahead of him however nothing was going to get in the way of this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
"We have a pretty good run this morning, we left home at about 2:30am and we got here just after 5am. Obviously there wasn’t a lot of traffic at that hour,” said Carey.
Carey bought with him Les Bennett and Ethan Van Zyl.
“It’s not very often that blokes like us can get out and play a course in this condition, it’s really special to see. You can really feel first-hand what they’re going to be going through over the next couple of days,” said Carey.
Although winning the prize did draw attention to Carey who was head hunted on Facebook for a spot in the grouping.
“A guy tracked me down on Facebook after finding out I won the competition and he said to me ‘Listen, I’ll pretty much give you anything to get a spot in the group. If you’re interstate I’ll fly you, it doesn’t matter, you name it.'
"He carried Jack Nicklaus’ scoreboard in the 2005 British Open and he even offered to give that to me just for the game,” told Carey.
But nothing could dwarf the priceless experience ahead of Carey, Bennett and Van Zyl.
"The quality of the course is phenomenal. Anyone who’s got the opportunity to win a round of golf like this with a touring pro is invaluable. Just to watch how they go about their business is fantastic,” said Bennett.