I Had 47 Days to Win $60,000 or Lose My Ranch. The Only Thing I Was Ever Good At Was Shearing Sheep, So I Flew to New Zealand to Beat the Best in the World

The Golden Shears open final is twenty sheep.

Six men on a raised wooden stage in front of two thousand screaming people. Judges watching every stroke. Points for speed. Points taken off for every cut, every second cut, every patch of wool left behind.

The other five finalists had a combined forty-one national titles.

I had a lien on my ranch and a borrowed handpiece.

When they announced my name, somebody in the crowd started chanting.

“YANK. YANK. YANK.”

It was Rewi’s whole family. Cousins, nephews, aunties, grandchildren. Thirty people in matching T-shirts that said *TENNANT* across the front, which Rewi’s wife had made in her garage that morning.

I almost cried before the first sheep.

The whistle blew.

I don’t remember most of it. That’s the truth. I remember the first sheep and the last sheep. Everything between them was sweat and noise and the voice of Rewi in my head.

*Let the sheep tell you where to go.*

I finished fourth. In time.

Fifteen minutes later, they posted the quality scores.

Then they posted the final results.

The crowd went quiet.

Then it exploded.

I had the cleanest board of the day. Not one cut. Not one second cut. The judges’ quality points pulled me from fourth to first by less than a point.

I won the Golden Shears.

Rewi got to me first. He picked me up off the stage like a sack of wool.

Then a man in a suit got to me second.

“Congratulations, Mr. Tennant,” he said, and handed me his card. “I’m with the event’s sponsor. About the prize money. There’s a small issue with paying a foreign national.”