Andy Capostagno golf
There was a certain poignancy in the way the professional golfing season handed the baton on last Sunday. In stifling heat at Leopard Creek Darren Fichardt won the Tour Championship to conclude the Sunshine Tour, while a relaxed Ernie Els climbed into the top 10 with a six-under-par 65 before flying to Florida to rejoin the United States PGA Tour.
Four hours’ drive away at Glendower in Johannesburg, Mandy Adamson won the first event of the new Nedbank Ladies Professional Golf Tour on a day of driving rain and gathering gloom. Maybe they should call it the Rainsuit Tour.
Conditions at the Nedbank Mastercard Classic got so bad that the organisers were forced to drive cars on to the course to provide artificial light on the last hole. “It was really dark. The hole felt like a million miles,” said Adamson, who bogeyed it, but won the tournament by a shot from Argentina’s Mara Larrauri.
This week the tour moves on to Woodhill Country Club in Pretoria for the Telkom Classic, the second of five tournaments on the schedule.
After this week there are two events in the Cape and the tour finishes at Sun City with the South African Ladies Masters from March 23 to 25, the most prestigious ladies’ golfing trophy and richest cash prize in Africa.
For the first time the Masters is being co-sanctioned with the Evian Ladies European Tour, and offers local professional players an opportunity to compete against some of the finest women golfers on the European circuit. For the visiting foreign players, points achieved in the tournament count towards possible inclusion in the prestigious Evian Ladies Masters tournament played at Evian in France.
A total of about 120 professionals, including 65 foreign and 35 local players, have entered. The South African players include Adamson, defending champion, Joanne Norton (winner of last year’s Nedbank MasterCard Classic), and the country’s three newest professional golfers, Sanet Marais, Vanessa Smith and Anneri Wessels, runner-up in this tournament last year.