The Million Dollar Challenge is a unique event, and this year the play was of an exceptionally high standard, but the spectators’ behaviour wasn’t
GOLF:Jon Swift
T HERE are many things that are very different about the annual Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge at Sun City … and not all of them have to do with the golf.
In fact, off the surface of the long, twisting green arena of the playing area, the majority of things have very little to do with the game which is central to the yearly bash.
The tournament is just another manifestation of the vision Sol Kerzner showed by carving his own version of the way Africa should look out of the unremitting bushveld. The event was conceived to get people to focus on Sun City.
Without detracting from the quality of the players who have come to shoot a little white ball at one of golf’s biggest roulette wheels, it was and remains a designed-for-TV spectacular, to which has been added another dimension … hoards of middle-aged men in hats.
It is now, however, the intention here to expand on the foibles of a gallery trapped in the core of an extinct volcano, be it as one of the buzzing horde of day-trippers or the more serious who stay for the full five rounds of pro-am and tournament play. More to the point is an examination of the inherent specialness of the Million itself; a huge prize, a limited field and no cut at all.
In the last of these three points, the ethos of the Million defies the common practice of tournament play, which dictates if you don’t perform, you don’t get to the pay-out window. In direct contrast, this is an event in which a dozen already rich young men are assured of at least a purse of $100 000 for bringing home the tail of the fore-shortened field.
There is something almost anti-golf in this, denying the oft-quoted adage of the professional tournament player that you can win the Masters one week and miss the cut the next. The trick then is in getting the balance right among the nominated 12, something that was never managed better than in the chase for the million that Colin Montgomerie eventually took home to Scotland after facing down our own Ernie Els over three extra holes of sudden-death play.
It was, as the sweating Montgomerie pointed out, a tough battle to the tape, and left him with the satisfaction of both taking away the major cheque and some satisfaction from snatching one back from Els.
Montgomerie, though he must be given full credit for diplomacy at the end of a back- breaking second day, when the Friday consisted of making up the leeway caused by the thunderstorms of the opening round and having to bear the brunt of the one-eyed support of the home-town boy. “It was,” he said, “quite hard to concentrate out there at times.”
Els, while clearly enjoying the fact that the galleries were his to rule, agreed in his normal direct and laid-back fashion. “They’re out there having a good time and some of them have a few too many beers,” he said, softening the punch with that lazy smile which takes every ounce of sting out of whatever he says. “You mean cokes, don’t you? said his anxious questioner, Jimmy Metcalfe. “No,” said Ernie, the smile broadening, “I mean beers!”
But in this, the two players – admittedly in very different ways – touched on what makes the Million both the resounding public success and its private failure as a tournament. There are, in short, too many in the galleries there for the beer and the buzz. The vast majority of the legions who trek to the Pilanesberghave come for the corporate hospitality.
They have come for the hat and the dated golf shirt. A day to do business and get totally blasted before the bus takes them back to the big city.
It is something which is now firmly woven into the event. An addition which ensures both its popularity and its continuance. But, just as an observation, it is a factor that if it doesn’t worry the tournament organisers right now, will become their biggest headache in years to come.
The accent, quite rightly, is on fun. This is as it should be. The organisation comes as close to being flawless as is humanly possible. But it only takes a handful to turn that into the meaner side of the South African psyche. And, it must be added, there are just too many people to effectively police the course against such a manifestation eventually breaking through.
The carnival atmosphere which surrounds the very serious business out on the course is at odds with what the professionals are trying to accomplish. And, in years to come, if the off-course behaviour continues to deteriorate under a veritable ocean of consumables, invariably wet, sometimes – but not always – cold and always alcoholic, the players themselves must surely have to take a second look at braving the mobs for a big pay-day.
Yet, even with all this, the Million is a special occasion. And invariably the finish lives up to this, whether it be the cold- blooded dismantling of the course Nick Price managed four years ago, or the excitement of having Els and Montgomerie slug it out to the finish.
And it is equally proven – this time around – by the statistics which saw Corey Pavin, last year’s instant millionaire, finish under-par and yet in the guard’s van.
It was Pavin who was denied entrance to the media centre by the gate guard, who doubtless had his own very specific orders. Pavin took it in good heart and when his pleas that he was a player and did not have a media pass were not good enough to gain him entry, waited for an official to get him through. Where else, you must ask, would that happen?
This year’s running was also enhanced by the charge made to join the play-off by both Price and Steve Jones, who finished a shot back from a place in the play-off and, despite the effort involved in getting that close, will be relegated to the history of also-rans on this year’s final leader board.
It is perhaps sad that this is so, for everyone in this year’s field played better than ever before. It really was a super event out there.
Off the course? It is perhaps well to remember what VS Naipaul once wrote: “In the end, Africa grows over everything.”