Andy Capostagno golf
The makeover was not quite complete in time for the first round of the Nedbank Golf Challenge. The new clubhouse with its second-storey gym and jacuzzi was ready for business, but rain at the wrong time meant that there were “ground under repair” signs painted on to areas of the 14th fairway.
Three-time winner of the top prize Nick Price put it into perspective when he said: “It’s unusual to see white lines painted on this course, but if it’s normally 10 out of 10 for conditioning, this year it’s 9,2 or 9,3. It’s hard to criticise this golf course; I just love it.”
The fairways and greens have all been relaid this year and Price came as close as he probably ever will to criticism when he said that the tournament had come a month early. The greens are a little soft, so the skating-rink slipperiness of the final two days that has been a tradition at the Gary Player Country Club will not be there this year.
Defending champion Ernie Els was a little more dismissive of the changes. Speaking after Wednesday’s Pro-Am, Els said: “It’s the same old Sun City. They might have widened a few corners on the greens and I can see the point of relaying the greens generally, but I don’t know why they ripped up the fairways, because you can’t do a lot about kikuyu grass.”
Exactly how much Els wins this week will depend to an extent on how the Springboks do against England at Twickenham on Saturday. He has struck a R50 000 bet with Lee Westwood, who declined to give Els the bookies’ start of 10 points on offer for the visitors.
The point was made that the last Fancourt resident to become involved with bookies, a certain Wessel Johannes Cronje, got into trouble, to which Els’s response was: “I don’t live at Fancourt, I just play my golf there.” And anyway, the winning pot will go straight to the Sports Trust, a worthy cause.
Westwood is fresh from winning the European Order of Merit, a title that has for the past seven years been the personal fiefdom of Colin Montgomerie, and on Thursday he was named European golfer of the year. Westwood, lobster-faced after his practice round, put the improvement in his game down to two things; his mind and his putting.
And while the latter aspect speaks for itself to anyone who has watched Westwood on his way to six titles this year, the former is due in no small part to the influence of playing with Price at Sun City last year.
Price said that Westwood had asked if he could have half an hour of his time at the end of last year’s final round. “Lee came up to my room and said he felt he had topped out. He asked me what he needed to do to get to the next level with his game.”
Price suggested that the next step was to inspect between the ears and recommended the services of Bob Rotella, an American psychologist the Zimbabwean has used for several years. Westwood duly consulted Rotella at the US Open and USPGA, and the results have been there for all to see.
Price, who reckons to have two more years of being in genuine contention for the four major championships, made no bones about who to watch this week and the bookies agree that Westwood and Els are the men to beat.
However, Price is the oldest man in the tournament and he shot a six-under-par 66 in the Pro-Am, two shots better than Darren Clarke, three better than Montgomerie and Westwood and nine ahead of Els who came home in 75, but pronounced himself “almost there” with his golf game and “perfect” with his back.
But to exclude anyone in an elite 12-man field is an act of foolishness, especially give the fact that there is likely to be placing on the fairways for each of the first two days. The rough is also at its least fearsome for many years, a pale shadow of the jungle which greeted the players in 1995 when Corey Pavin won by dint of avoiding it for 72 straight holes.
If as a result of preferred lies and light rough the tournament becomes target golf, then the American-based players will come into contention, and John Huston may go from John Who? to John Two Million.
It need hardly be said that such an outcome would be a disaster for the organisers, who, in the 20th year of Sun City’s existence, desperately need a charismatic champion rather than an extremely wealthy journeyman.
@Young gun returns home Gavin Foster motorcycling
Last year Grant Isaacs impressed race fans with a mature ride in the opening round of the World Superbike series at Kyalami. Just two weeks after Vodacom had offered to buy him a ride in the Italian NCR Ducati team the youngster finished 14th in both heats, despite never having raced anything as powerful before. His efforts showed enough promise to convince his sponsors that they’d picked a winner, but from then on things hardly got better, and at the end of this season, his second full year in World Superbikes, Vodacom withdrew its support and his contract with NSR Ducati was terminated. He’d finished the series in a miserable 31st position.
But Isaacs is adamant that his motorcycle racing career is far from over, and the cellphone giant is continuing to back him, this time in national rather than international competition. “I learnt a lot over there,” says the youngster who moved from BMX racing he was a South African champion to motocross to road racing. “Now I want to see what I’m capable of locally.”
Isaacs says his World Superbike career was doomed because his team failed to provide him with equal equipment and there was a communications problem between him and the Italian team members. “I had a lot of engine failures, and at times there weren’t any tyres for me. The team manager sometimes just wouldn’t listen to what I was saying, or he simply didn’t care. Qualifying was always horrible for me because I never had qualifying tyres I’d have to go out on tyres that had already done 45 laps. In the races I generally did better than in quali-fying because I had new rubber then. Even so, I had normal customer tyres, not special compounds like the front runners had.”
So now that he’s back in South Africa, is the pressure on to prove that he really is a world-class rider? “I’m trying not to put myself under pressure. I’m going to ride to the best of my ability and it’ll be interesting to see what I’ve gained overseas. I haven’t ridden a 600cc for a while but I should adapt pretty quickly.”
Vodacom Nashua Yamaha team manager and number one rider Russell Wood says he thinks Isaacs (22) was thrown into the World Superbike cauldron rather too soon for his own good. “I think people were disappointed because their expectations were too high,” says Wood. “He left here without having won a single superbike national championship race, so how could they expect him to shape in the world championships?”
Although Wood took the youngster aboard as part of a sponsorship package rather than through any personal belief that he is exceptionally talented, he believes Isaacs should soon be a regular top-five runner. “He should treat this as yet another learning curve. He learnt a lot over there but racecraft’s very important and you don’t learn that running midfield. If he can get near the front and start learning racecraft he should be okay. You sometimes have to take one step back to go three steps forward.”
Isaacs will now have to get used to riding a 600cc four-cylinder motorcycle on treaded tyres again, after two years of racing on a 996cc Ducati shod with slicks. For the older, more experienced riders like Wood, Robbie Petersen or Greg Dreyer the transition would come easily, thanks to their long and varied track careers. For Isaacs it may take a little longer, as he had only limited road-racing experience prior to his leap to World Superbikes.
“I’m going to spend some time testing, to get used to the bike before the start of the next season,” says Isaacs. “Then I’d like to get down to business from the word go.”
But getting to the front in the domestic superbike series next year could prove almost as daunting a task as trying to beat Carl Fogarty, Colin Edwards, Troy Corser and Pierfrancesco Chile in Europe was in 1999 and 2000.
“To come back to South Africa and win nationals is quite a task because the current top riders are mostly over 30,” says Wood. “They have tons of experience, they know the circuits like the backs of their hands, and they have the best motorcycles. But that’s why I’ve been given the task of developing Lance and the other young rider, Arushen Moodley to make sure the front row isn’t just made up of old bullets.”