Professional golfer and trick shot artist, Cook Islander Tania Tare can balance a golf ball, knock it off her knee and then smash it with a driver in mid-air.

At 31, Tara Tare has made a name for herself on the world circuit of golf with her amazing talent for executing trick shots.

She lives in Arizona, USA, but as soon as the borders opened, she headed home to New Zealand where she was born and raised, and on to the Cook Islands where she has ties through her mother, Tuuru Tare who hails from the island of Aitutaki.

At the age of 12, Tare saw the famous TV commercial featuring Tiger Woods juggling a golf ball - from which she learnt her first trick shot. She never did hit a ball off the ground until she was 14.

At the age of 20, Tare moved to the USA, turning pro in 2014.

“At a golf range one day there was a coach in the bay next to us who asked to coach me, that’s basically how I started.”

Tare first started doing trick shots for her friends and family who thought that golf was kind of boring, “I totally taught myself,” she says.

In 2017 she launched into trick shots, rising to fame as one of the most recognisable trick shots artists on social media.

 “It’s super-random. The trick shot side is like the fun side of golf, because everyone thinks there’s the stigma with golf where you can only play it one way and it’s boring, and you have to have certain status …” she says.

“Sometimes people have the stereotype that golf is slow and boring and there’s no activity happening half the time. The trick shots stuff kinda helped some people pick up the sport.

“Golf has given me a lot of opportunities. What I like the most is when I hear from people who didn’t play golf, but when they saw one of the trick shots, they would go to a range and try it out, and end up playing golf.”

Knowing how hard it can be in trying to keep a kid’s attention with golf, “because it’s a slow sport”, parents have reached out to her.

“If kids can do stuff and do challenges while they’re waiting, they’ll start enjoying the sport more.”

Tare has travelled the globe playing at the world’s best golf courses and creating incredible golf trick content.

She continues to amass a huge following online, and has appeared on television’s The James Corden Show and has associations with Ping, Adidas and On Core Golf.

Tare is grateful for all social media which has helped her and opened doors of opportunity and is mindful that there definitely is a good and bad side.

Having had a pretty solid grounding, Tare is able to use social media and not get emotionally attached to the negative side that comes with it.

During her short visit, Tare will visit the home island of Aitutaki with her brother, and has plans to return for another visit in the near future.