GOLF: Jon Swift
WE are a nation of immense expectations, buoyed by the optimism which tends to flatten out the hills of the failures which are so inherently part of the human condition. In the realm of South African golf, thank heaven we
We have had any number of success stories within the boundaries of the game from the sons of our soil. Let us list just some of
l Ernie Els winning the Byron Nelson Classic and defending the World Matchplay title.
l Southern Africa comprehensively beating the Australasians in the inaugural Alfred Dunhill Challenge at Houghton.
l Simon Hobday and Gary Player winning on the United States tour — the ageless Player taking a title for the first time in two
l Hendrik Buhrmann coming second in the European qualifying school — no mean achievement — and Roger Wessels starting the new year as a fully exempt player on the European Tour.
l Nico van Rensburg winning in Asia and Ian Hutchings taking the Alberta Open title in
All of these deserve more respect than perhaps has been awarded.
At home though, things are not quite as rosy and the rapidly fragmenting face of professional touring golf in Southern Africa is not an entirely happy one.
There are now effectively five tours running. It is germane to examine what this means by looking at the way the structure pans out.
l The three events tied to the European Tour — the FNB Players Championship at Durban Country Club, the PGA at Houghton and the Dimension Data Pro-Am at Sun City — must be taken as the top end as this is where the money and the television coverage is.
l The remainder of the traditional FNB Tour, devastated by the withdrawal of sponsors unhappy with the paucity of focus and TV time.
l The new Pro-Afrique Tour, worth about R2,5- million, which kicks off with a R100 000 event at Glendower on January 10 and encompasses 22 scheduled events.
l The old Winter Tour, which will run a proposed 16 events alongside the 22 of the Pro-Afrique Tour, and is aimed at identifying the top players of the future.
The conflict which exists between events with European Tour status and those withourt on the FNB Tour proper is self-evident.
The conflict between the Winter and the Pro- Afrique Tours, both tied to the Order of Merit, is a shade more confusing. To illustrate this, take the case of the player presently 99th on the Order of Merit with R1 320 in season earnings. That player does not qualify for the Pro-Afrique event at Glendower and will have to make do with a Winter Tour tournament and around R1 400 for a top 10 finish. The player currently 101st on the same list with earnings of R1 127 for the season does qualify and stands to make R3 500 for a top 10 finish at Glendower. Somehow this does not add up.
Neither does the development segment in the light of what happened to the one new sponsor during the course of this year. They put up R100 000 as a joint golf development and tourism booster in Mpumalanga, ran highly successful and popular caddie tournaments at 11 clubs in the region — often with members reversing the roles and carrying the player’s bags — which culminated in a big pro-am.
They approached the PGA’s development division for some help only to be told that there was enough money through them without golf lending a hand.
Tour Commissioner Brent Chalmers has also been left scratching his head. Chalmers works on a strictly regulated cut of the sponsorship money which he is on record as saying is not realistic in that he is, perhaps, taking too much out of the game.
He is prepared to renegotiate downwards — “I’m even paying my own petrol already” — to put the cash back into the game rather than into the pockets his contract has opened.
Chalmers has a problem. He can’t get enough people who can count together to talk about
Like the burgeoning tours, 1996 is the year that golf has to sit down and talk.