After three weeks of high-profile events, golf in South Africa now takes a break for the festive season.
There is a qualifier for the (British) Open Championship at Atlantic Beach in Cape Town on January 13 and 14, but the season proper doesn’t resume until the 20th, which will give the players an opportunity to burn off Christmas excess and forget about New Year resolutions.
The South African Airways Open is the second of the events that are co-sanctioned by the European Tour and it is always a delight to know that it will be played at Durban Country Club: yesterday, today and always the finest golf course in this country.
Others may have better greens, more perfectly manicured fairways, designer clubhouses, what have you, but Country Club is a cathedral built by nature, not dollars.
Those in charge of the old lady have relaxed their standards over the years, as illustrated by the fact that the professionals now have areas to relax within the clubhouse.
In the early 1960s, when Papwa Sewgolum won a tournament there, prize-giving was held on the 18th green in the rain. Many have conveniently misreported that the reason for this was that Sewgolum was not white, but that was, in fact, a secondary consideration.
Sewgolum and his colleagues were not welcome in the clubhouse because they were professionals, therefore enjoying a status a little above caddies, but definitely below waiters in the great colonial scheme of things.
The new millennium frowns upon such things and accords professional golfers the status of superstars, but that has come about only in the past 20 years.
In some places, of course, the old ways still prevail and no, we’re not talking about some gentleman’s club in Surrey here, we’re talking about Leopard Creek, home to last week’s dunhill championship (sic).
At Leopard Creek the clubhouse is restricted to members only and the professionals wash and dress in a marquee 2km away.
Johann Rupert, the billionaire owner of Leopard Creek, is also on the board of the Sunshine Tour. As such he needs to be sensitive to the criticism that came the way of this year’s dunhill championship, the first to be played away from Houghton in Johannesburg.
Magnificent golf course though it undoubtedly is, Leopard Creek’s position on the edge of the Kruger Park makes it a challenging place to get to. It is also asking an awful lot of European golfers to support two events in South Africa more than a month apart, so 2006 is likely to see a reversion to the back-to-back idea that helped support both the dunhill and the SA Open in the past.
In 2006, Sunshine Tour commissioner Johan Immelman also hopes to see a World Golf Championship (WGC) event played in this country. Top-secret plans for something a bit different are being lodged with the WGC chiefs, but sadly it is all likely to come down to the same old problem: Americans don’t like playing outside the United States. It cheapens the idea of a ‘world†tour when many USPGA players regard ‘abroad†as Iowa.
The good news is that there is already a true ‘World Event†scheduled for South Africa in February next year. This is the Women’s World Cup of Golf, to be played at the Links in George, venue of the 2003 Presidents Cup. Thus far, Sweden’s world number one, Anika Sorenstam, is playing hard to get, but many of the finest female players in the world are confirmed.
Like its male counterpart, the World Cup consists of teams of two, but it differs slightly inasmuch as gifted amateurs may be chosen as well as hardened professionals. Michelle Wie is not part of the US team, but it could be argued that the 14-year-old Hawaiian sensation is not yet fit to rank alongside reigning US Open champion Meg Mallon or perennial front-runner Beth Daniel.
The same does not apply to South Africa, however, which will be represented by Laurette Maritz and another teenage amateur wonder, Ashleigh Simon. Fancourt owner Hasso Plattner has secured rights to the event for the next three years and if it goes off as smoothly as the Presidents Cup it could lay claim to being the biggest thing to hit this country next year.
Simon is also eligible to play in a new amateur tournament that will debut next year, but is likely to be too busy to enter The Golfstakes Team Championship. This is a new nationwide event for amateur golfers of either sex, with R4-million in prize money available. It will be played at 63 courses and the top 80 teams will go through to compete in the finals at Sun City.
On the net
Golfstakes.co.za