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GOLF: Jon Swift
THIS season heralds great things for Wayne Westner, the runaway winner of the FNB Tour’s Order of Merit with a staggering R709 308 in winnings on the circuit.
The hugely talented Westner has ironed some of the inconsistencies out of his game and shown an admirable composure in adversity, such as the refusal to give up over the two disastrous holes at Royal Swazi which cost him yet another title.
He goes back into the European Tour already a winner through his victory at Durban Country Club and with a healthy start on the money list. No one would begrudge him either. Westner played superbly, even in defeat.
But there is something skewed about an Order of Merit which over-compensates at both ends of a circuit which is whole in name but fractured in reality. Those good enough to play a couple of the big money European- linked tournaments and still finish high on the order are at one end of the scale; those who play the old Winter Tour and the new Pro Afrique Tour — part of the overall picture — are at the other.
Unionism in professional golf is as unwelcome as unbridled capitalism in industry. You cannot, when the object is to win, and only to win, reward the mediocre. But there is a case for the stay-at-home professionals who keep the game going in the financially barren months when the emphasis switches away from the three back-to- back European events which dominated the circuit which has just ended.
There is no ready answer. Indeed a lot of the alternatives have already been tried. but there is a solid case for quantifying the table which allows automatic entry next year to those who fall within the cut-off point of the top 65 money earners.
One such answer could be to reserve a number of automatic entries for next year from the top 15 or 20 of the regulars on the Winter Tour and leave the remaining 45 or 50 for the finishers on the big money sector of the tour proper.
But even this is not ideal. For those who manage a top finish outside the European-linked events could just miss either qualification. Perhaps there is a separate argument for the merits of having three qualification standards.
This would certainly be in the interests of South African golfers, but there is little doubt that the Europeans would not wear the idea. They have already exceeded normal quotas for local players in recognising three events in this country. And it would certainly not find favour with the tour organisers who have gone out of their way to emphasise that the tour is one entity when it patently is not.
The growth of the tour — or at least the showcase part of it — is of vital importance to the continuance of professional golf in this country. So, too, is the Winter Tour. It will continue to be a breeding ground for the top tournament professionals of the future.
But somewhere, somehow, something has got to give. If it doesn’t, the tour could well self-destruct with the cream of the European Order of Merit staying at home rather than risk a chancy African safari and the up-and- coming locals sitting it out on the sidelines for the big tournaments. ENDS