Not so long ago the Sunshine Tour was looking like the Sunset Tour. Sponsors sought pastures new, tournaments fell by the wayside and young players from abroad, the lifeblood of South African tournaments for so long, stayed away.
But the new millennium has brought new life and the 2000/2001 season looks like being the turning point for professional golf in South Africa.
Last week the Alfred Dunhill Championship produced a wonderful finish with two 20-year-olds, Justin Rose and Adam Scott, going head to head down the stretch. This week the European Tour once again adds lustre to the South African Open at East London golf course. And wonder of wonders, since the tour began at Royal Cape in December, two new tournaments have been added to the roster, bringing the total to eight.
For those who remember the Eighties and early Nineties when the tour ran from November to March with nothing but a brief rest for Christmas, that might seem like small potatoes, but at least now we have a tour worthy of the name and not just a lucrative series of exhibitions.
In addition to the limited-field Tour Championship at Leopard Creek at the end of February, next month also sees the return of the PGA Championship at Woodhill Country Club in Pretoria.
So with successive weeks of top tournaments with good purses to come the order of merit may return to the days when it reflected success by players over a three-month period, rather than in the two weeks of co-sanctioned European Tour events. Which is not to denigrate the effect of the big two, but merely to point out that a strong national identity is returning at last to a tour that has been in the doldrums for far too long.
Undeniably, however, the biggest week of the tour is upon us with the 90th staging of the SA Open, the second-oldest national open in the world. And if Sunday’s finish is even half as dramatic as last year’s at Randpark it will be worth watching.
Matthias Gronberg of Sweden added his name to the winners’ roster by coming out of the pack on the final day, but not before he almost died of shock when, preparing himself for the trophy presentation, he watched Darren Fichardt’s approach to the final hole do everything but go in for an eagle, a result that would have forced a playoff.
Gronberg is back to defend his title this week and Fichardt will be there too, following a season where he went from being the journeyman with the swing like Jim Furyk’s to the man who represented his country at the World Cup in Argentina. Fichardt’s partner in Buenos Aires, Retief Goosen, will also be in East London and you might say that the quietly spoken lad from Pietersburg is due.
Two weeks ago he finished second to Mark McNulty at the Wild Coast and last week a familiar last-day charge saw him finish seventh at the Alfred Dunhill Championship after lying dormant for most of the previous three days. Leading the challenge will be Darren Clarke and Thomas Bjorn.
It may be a lot to ask of Bjorn to emerge from a foot operation and be competi-tive, but for Clarke, born and raised on the links of Northern Ireland, the hills and winds of East London may be just the thing to bring out his considerable best.
