The women played some strokes of genius but there were not many spectactors to witness them
GOLF:Mark Lamport-Stokes
LAST week’s South African women’s amateur golf championships at Killarney Golf Club highlighted two factors: this country possesses women golfers of a high quality but the sport still struggles to attract the galleries.
Immaculate Killarney in Johannesburg could not have provided a better autumnal setting for the Bell’s national strokeplay and matchplay championships. The par-72 parkland layout was superbly manicured with barely a blade of grass out of place.
The first three days featured the strokeplay championships and Free State’s Sanet Marais, the country’s number one women’s amateur, prevailed after rounds of 71, 75 and 69.
Level with Clovelly’s Wendy Warrington on 146 going into the final round, the diminutive one-handicapper clinched the title in style.
Four birdies over the closing nine holes gave Marais her second national strokeplay title – after her strokeplay/matchplay double in 1994 – and a 54-hole aggregate of 215.
Marais’ performance over the three days exuded class, but she only drew “crowds” of her boyfriend and former Western Transvaal cricketer Louis van Wyk, a few parents of other competing players, an official or two, the odd genuine golfing spectator and three members of the press.
The reasons for this poor attendance could be one or more of several: nowadays, the Gauteng sporting public face a surfeit of international and top provincial attractions; women’s golf pales as a spectacle in comparison with the men’s game; insufficient publicity was generated for the Killarney championships; there were no real drawcards taking part in the event. This list could go on and you can take your pick.
But the fact remains that, while women amateurs do not strike the ball as far as their male counterparts, they still produce golf of a high and eminently watchable calibre.
Generally, women amateurs swing straight and sweetly smooth. They are well-equipped to play the percentage game and they hit a large number of fairways and greens. Many display a Seve Ballesteros-like touch with seven iron, wedge and putter.
The women’s matchplay championships which immediately followed the strokeplay event were a lot more compelling for that rarity – the Killarney spectator – in that they served up an enticing casserole of high drama, upsets and quality play.
Among the drama and upsets: both Marais and Warrington, the expected finalists in the event, were knocked out in the quarter- finals. Marais narrowly lost on the 20th hole to KwaZulu-Natal’s talented 16-year- old Colet Vijoen while Warrington three- putted the last for Free State’s Yolande Pelser to steal a slender one-hole victory.
The matchplay title was finally won over 36 holes by Benoni Country Club’s Joanne Norton – a golfer who had previously rated herself as a better strokeplayer.
The 24-year-old Norton clinched victory six and five over Kensington’s Cherry Moulder, having established a solid foothold for her triumph after opening up a massive nine- hole lead in the morning. Twice Norton holed approach shots to card a splendid two-under-par 70.
Stubbornly, though, the 20-year-old Moulder refused to lie down and she clawed back three holes in the early part of the afternoon with a third nine of 34. Moulder, a long hitter of the ball and a magician around the greens, chipped in from 15m for birdie on the third and all but drove the 256m eighth to pick up another hole.
But Norton’s considerable lead from the morning 18 proved too stiff a task for Moulder to overhaul.
The one-handicapper went seven holes up after Moulder three-putted the 10th and, despite a Moulder win on the 14th after getting up and down from a greenside bunker, both players shared the next two holes. That presented the Benoni player with her inaugural title on the 31st hole.
One other point worth mentioning about the matchplay final was that finally a reasonable gallery of around 80 watched the golfing story unfold – but that is the exception rather than the norm.
How can this general lack of spectator support for women’s golf be overcome? Wendy Warrington, South Africa’s 1985 and 1986 women’s amateur matchplay champion, is undecided: “It’s very difficult and I don’t know what it is in the Transvaal, in particular, that doesn’t bring out the people.
“We got the coverage for the nationals at Killarney and, if we can keep that up, it can only help. But I believe it’s the local golfers that need to come out more – so maybe more posters are required in the clubs, in the ladies’ locker-rooms … things like that.”
The whole scenario can resemble the chicken-and-egg sequence, especially with regard to bringing more players into the game.
“The women’s amateur players now are definitely younger than, say, 10 years ago,” Warrington says. “But there are not enough coming through and that can only be drummed up by a lot more overall media coverage, sponsorship and advertising in women’s golf.”
“The biggest problem we’ve got at the moment is the younger players turning pro and that keeps taking it out of amateur golf. The minute anybody gets good, they turn pro and we lose them.”
However Gilly Tebbutt, five-time winner of the matchplay title between 1984 and 1995 and strokeplay champion in 1986, 1989 and 1990 (shared), is a little more optimistic.
“I think now it’s going from strength to strength. We’ve got a lot of very good young players coming up – as we saw in the matchplay final – and Colet Viljoen from Natal is a very good prospect. It will take a couple of years as they’re all fairly inexperienced but it all bodes very well for the next five to 10 years.”
Sanet Marais represents the flagship of women’s amateur golf in South Africa at the moment and the plus-two handicapper is generally the leading drawcard at most local events
How good is this diminutive player – affectionately known as “Mighty Mouse” by her peers – and how good can she become?
“Sanet has played a lot of international golf, so she has the experience,” says Tebbutt. “I think she’s an extremely good golfer – she’s got an excellent temperament and her concentration is impressive. She’s still young and yet she’s already achieved an enormous amount at the age of 24. I think she can only get better. You know, golfers reaches their prime in their mid- thirties so I think she’s going to have a lot of good golf – and her experience will really count in 10 years’ time.”
As far as Tebbutt is concerned, Marais’s real strengths lie in her mental attitude and her short game: “Her mental attitude is very strong, her short game is very good, she’s a very consistent player and she strikes the ball very well. She can only go far.” Hopefully, the amateur version of the South African women’s game can emulate Marais – and travel equally far.