The Xin sisters, Victoria (Year 10) and Alice (Year 8), are beginning to take the golfing world by storm, showcasing their spectacular talents at national and international tournaments. Victoria’s appetite for golf began right here at Kristin in Year 4, trying it for the first time after setting up a golfing club with a friend. She enjoyed it so much that she decided to take it up more seriously. For Alice, her interest in golf was sparked by her older sister. “I think I was around seven years old when I first started. During Covid, Victoria was always in the backyard practising her swing. I was quite bored, so I thought I would join her! I have been playing ever since,” says Alice.
The girls clearly enjoy the sport, practising five or six days a week at the North Shore Golf Club and playing on the weekend at Pupuke Golf Club. “If you practice a lot, you really get to see the results, which I enjoy. I also love how many people you get to meet, especially playing international tournaments; you get to meet people from all over the world,” says Victoria.
Living under the same roof, Victoria and Alice spend a lot of time playing and practising together, and as you can imagine, this brings with it some healthy sister-to-sister competition. “We definitely have some good competition between us. I am not sure if it is a good thing or not, but Dad made up a game for us when we are playing 18 holes together. Basically, we bet money per hole on who will win. It creates a bit more tension and makes it even more exciting and fun!” laughs Victoria.
Both girls have recently been putting their practice into play, securing some fantastic results in New Zealand and across the ditch. Playing against some of the best young golfers from around the world at the Australian Amateur Championships hosted at the Ballarat Golf Club, Victoria finished fourth in the U16 Girls’ division and eighth overall, while Alice placed fourth in the U14 Girls’ division and twenty-third overall. They both then competed at the U16 South Island Championships, where Victoria finished second and Alice seventh, and again at a tournament in Thailand, where Alice was the youngest competitor in the field. In late May, Victoria travelled to New York to play in a qualifying tournament for the USGA Junior Girls’ Championship at Sunningdale Country Club, where she finished fifth overall, narrowly missing qualification by just one shot.
Victoria has already secured some amazing results in her young amateur golfing career. In 2025. When she was in Year 9, she remarkably won the individual title at the New Zealand Secondary Schools’ Golf Championships. She shot sensational back-to-back rounds of 66 (-4) to finish at the top of the individual leaderboard on -8, beating out the best young amateur male and female golfers in the country. “It was pretty exciting to beat all of them and win. There were so many good players from all over New Zealand, many of them much older than me, so the competition was tough. I think because it was a team event, I was more focused on our Kristin team and trying to score as low as possible; I wasn't really thinking about the individual competition, which put the pressure elsewhere,” says Victoria.
Victoria was already familiar with big wins. You only have to rewind the clock a little further to 2024, when she won the IMG World U12 Championship in the United States of America, shooting impressive scores of 69, 69, and 72 to win the three-round tournament by two shots over 90 golfers from all over the world. “I think that one is certainly my best achievement because of the calibre of international golfers and the competitiveness at that tournament,” says Victoria.
When it comes to their favourite golf courses they have played, Alice picked a beauty, none other than TPC Sawgrass in Florida, which hosts the unofficial fifth golfing major, The Players Championship. The course features the famous island green on the seventeenth hole, whose surrounding water is estimated to claim over 120,000 golf balls per year, two of which Victoria claims are hers. Victoria and Alice look up to today's professionals, with both selecting three-time major winner Nelly Korda and our New Zealand superstar, three-time major and Olympic medal winner and LPGA Hall of Famer, Dame Lydia Ko, as their favourites, alongside men's players Ludwig Alberg and Colin Morikawa.
For any aspiring golfers or Sunday hackers out there fishing for a few tips, the girls are happy to chip in. “Target practice and distance control. Practice your shots at 20, 30, 40, 50 metres, and so on. It will help you become much more precise with your shot windows. Oh, and keep your head down!” says Victoria. “Work on your swing tempo. If your tempo is wrong, the ball can go anywhere, so it is a good thing to work on, and you can do it anywhere!” says Alice.
Looking ahead, both Victoria and Alice are taking it one tournament at a time, but their overall goal is to attend a college in the USA with a great golf programme, with Alice preferring UCLA and Victoria eyeing Stanford University. However, at the rate these two young golfing masters are progressing, you wouldn’t rule out seeing them competing against Korda or Ko on the world stage in the not-so-distant future.
Enviroschools Reflection: continuing Kristin’s sustainability journey
It’s been four years since Kristin School was awarded Green-Gold status as an Enviroschool, reflecting our strong commitment to sustainability. All Enviroschools are required to reflect on their progress every three years, so, in early Term 2, 50 students, staff, parents and board members gathered together for our Enviroschools Reflection, facilitated by Auckland Council’s Chris de Heer and three other members of the Sustainable Schools team. We had important questions to ask: Has Kristin moved forward in its journey as a Green-Gold Enviroschool? Are we still putting sustainability at the heart of everything we do?
This event was organised by Year 13 student Jerry Chen and a team of 15 students from across our three schools. For months, they collected stories and ‘evidence’ to show the various new initiatives and developments under the five key pillars of the Enviroschools framework: Sustainable Communities, Empowered Students, Learning for Sustainability, Te Ao Māori, and Respect for Diversity (and we’ve added Wellbeing).
The event had three key goals: highlight our progress, identify our challenges, and generate goals for the next three years. Matua Henare and our kapa haka group began the event with a waiata and karakia, and we then shared some sustainability highlights. Ms Hickman from Little Doves shared stories about how te ao Māori concepts are enhancing their students' learning and discussed the growth of Matariki celebrations at the centre. The Junior School has a new butterfly house to celebrate, and they shared their connections with Te Hononga a Iwi – growing harakeke seedlings for the Rosedale restoration project. We now have more student groups, such as the Marine Society and Garden to Table, and our prefects are working with Te Herenga Waka o Orewa marae and volunteering their time for local conservation projects. We continue to grow our use of te reo Māori, whakataukī, pōwhiri, and our own kōwhaiwhai is now represented on campus signage, honouring our bicultural heritage.
During the event, we highlighted that being a Green-Gold Enviroschool means our whole Kristin community is involved. Kristin Family and Friends (KFF) has been a significant supporter via its Dove Seed Fund, and the recycling of unwanted second-hand uniforms with ImpacTex has shown how a circular economy can work. More solar panels have been installed thanks to generous parent support, and our catering team now composts all food waste through the City to Farm programme.
A range of exciting new goals and ‘blue sky thinking’ were generated and will be used by the Council of Sustainability and our sustainability activator in future planning. Ideas include: our very own Kristin farm to produce carbon-zero food for our café and school lunches; being 100% solar-powered; students generating power while active on the playground; and adopting our local catchment and working collaboratively with other schools to be pest-free and support more biodiversity. We are excited about what the next three years will bring. Watch this space, as we continue our journey towards being one of the most sustainable schools in New Zealand!
