Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 i Compleat Golfer

10 BMW International Open (2013) This month I’d like to talk about this tournament in Germany. Every golfer remembers their first event: mine was this iconic tournament in beautiful Munich. When I made the decision to turn professional the European Tour gave me an invite to this tournament, one of the staple events on the Tour. I was ecstatic. I’m sure you can imagine how delighted I was. The reason for this event being so special is not due to the golf course, like so many other ones, but rather the tournament itself. The folks at BMW really go the extra mile that week. Which is why some of the biggest names in golf often grace the fairways for the event. You just have to look at the past winners…

Ban Hogan used to say you should never fight what your eye sees on a golf course. ‘If it looks one way, play it that way’ Sports psychologists would call this trusting yourself. Socrates, never a golfer, referred to it as ‘Know Thyself. Sunshine Tour professional James Hart du Preez calls it Psalm 139, Knowing. Searching. Understanding. Living. He may be only 25 years old, but Du Preez has been through a process of obstacles, injuries and disappointments that have interrupted his golf career several times over, and finally come to that awareness that is sweeter than any swing secret. ‘I’m comfortable with where and with who I am.’ From this realisation will most likely come a man who will make a success of his career as a professional golfer,…

The Sunshine Tour season kicked off in March with the Kit Kat Group Pro-Am at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club. At the start of the new season, it is usually also the time when we review our Permanent Local Rules, the so-called ‘Hard Card’. One of the things that makes our game unique is that the playing field changes from week to week on Tour. While the Rules of Golf apply universally to all golf, each course will have some scenarios that apply only at that particular course. For this reason, the Rules of Golf allow committees to draw up local rules in addition to the standard rules. There are guidelines and Model Local Rules that have been authorised by the R&A. It’s important to note that a local…

Hole No 13, 168m, par three Fred Beaver will tell you that club selection is the most important factor in getting through the 13th hole. This par three is only 168m from the championship tee but it really is a massive distance. Beaver has been the only club professional since the course opened 38 years ago I have had the pleasure of working with five general managers at the Wild Coast Sun. all of whom have understood the value the course has brought as a major feature of the estate,’ says the former Zimbabwean That has made the job a lot easier." As you stand on the tee and face a ravine, the sights and sounds of the waterfalls will distract you It’s visually stunning, You feel the wind and…

Top-ranked Caitlyn Macnab may have started the SA Amateur Championships slowly by her standards, losing the SA Stroke Play Championship to Megan Streicher by a stroke, but by the time the week ended there was no hotter player on the course. Macnab closed out a convincing 11 & 9 win over Streicher in the 36-hole final to successfully defend her SA Amateur title in fine style at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington’s East Course. The 2020 champion racked up an eagle and 10 birdies to wrap up the match on the 27th hole. ‘I hadn’t played a lot of tournament golf in the past year, so it took a while for me to warm up,’ said the Serengeti golfer. ‘I peaked just in time for the matchplay.’ She turned 5 up…

Back to work wcompeting agaie go and what a great feeling it was to be n after a two-month break. What a difference it made also to be living in Florida The journey to Orlando for my first tournament of the year was only two hours by car. which lowered the stress levels a lot when it comes to the travelling aspect The first tournament I played at after the break was the Gainbridge LPGA The venue was the well-known Lake Nona Country Club which the likes of Ian Poulter. Henrik Stenson. Annika Sorenstam. Lydia Ko and a few other pros call home while they’re in the US There was a buzz in the air during the week as Annika was competing for the first time at an LPGA event…

South Africa’s Lee-Anne Pace won the rain-shortened Blue Bay LPGA on Hainan Island. China, for her first LPGA Tour title and second worldwide victory in nine days. Four strokes ahead with five holes left when play was suspended on the Sunday because of darkness, Pace finished off a five-under 67 for a three-stroke victory over Germany’s Caroline Masson The 33-year-old Pace won the South African Women’s Open a week earlier for her ninth Ladies European Tour victory She became the second South Africa-born champion in LPGA Tour history, joining 15-time winner Sally Little. The victory was her third in China, after the Sanya Ladies Open in 2010 and 2013. ‘I can’t actually believe it,’ Pace said after her victory ‘I’m still so in the moment of one shot at a…

Dylan Frittelli @Dylan_Frittelli Kept it dry on 17 all week. My first complete @playerschampionship was nothing short of amazing! The @pgatour really sets the standard for every other event, now it’s the nail-biting time to see if my play was good enough to sneak into @dellmatchplay. Bryson DeChambeau @b_dechambeau Let’s have ourselves a Sunday @WestwoodLee. Talor Gooch @TalorGooch A Sunday to remember at Sawgrass! Closing 67 to pick up a T5 @THEPLAYERSChamp. Justin Rosa @JustinRose99 Congrats to @JustinThomas34 and cheers to @morganstanley for another great @THEPLAYERSChamp. With 48 eagles made, they’ve donated 72 000 books to @BookTrustUSA. #EagleUp Luke Donald @LukeDonald Congrats @JustinThomas34. Those draws off the tee on 16 & 18 were something nice... as was your outfit! Eddie Pepperell @PepperellEddie I was feeling glum, but now I’ve seen…

As a PGA of South Africa professional and a onetime Sunshine Tour campaigner, Bobby Verwey Jnr dreamed of going to The Masters as a competitor. It was a good dream. But he may never have come close to having the kind of experiences he had when he did eventually make it to The Masters – as Gary Player’s caddie. The nephew of the Grand Slam champion has had the privilege of caddying for his famous uncle at The Masters on eight occasions, including Player’s emotional final appearance there. Verwey has also caddied for Player on three Honorary Starter’s occasions. ‘All my life I dreamed of playing at The Masters because my dad [Bobby Verwey] and uncle Gary played. I’d never been there. Then in 2002 Gary phoned me to ask…

Once the world heard that the injuries Tiger Woods sustained in a car crash in February weren’t life-threatening, the speculation started. He had limb-saving surgery to his lower right leg. but he was soon transferred to a different centre of medical excellence to continue receiving treatment and to begin the rehabilitation process It was then that people began to get ahead of themselves. It was “only” his right leg. His stress as a golfer is absorbed by his left leg’ Will he be able to win another tournament? Will he add to his IS Majors?’ Ben Hogan was hit by a bus in 1949 and completed a great comeback to win He won six Majors after the accident in which he nearly died. Tiger is a born fighter, He has…

MEN OPEN 1 (4) Christiaan Maas (Pretoria CC) 2 [1] Martin Vorster (Pinnacle Point GC) 3 (2) Casey Jarvis (State Mines CC) 4 (6) Yurav Premlall (Glendower GC) 5 (12) Kieran van Wyk (Ruimsig CC) 6 (3) Kyle de Beer (Port Elizabeth GC) 7 (8) Jordan Duminy (Pinnacle Point GC) 8 (5) Ryan van Velzen (Benoni CC) 9 (11) Christiaan Burke (Potchefstroom GC) 10 (10) Samuel Simpson (Royal Cape GC) 11 (9) Werner Deyzel (Woodhill CC) 12 (13) Francois van der Walt (Centurion CC) 13 (15) Dawid Opperman (Pretoria CC) 14 (7) Christo Lamprecht (Pinnacle Point GC) 15 (14) Jordan Bumand (Ebotse GC) 16 (18) Jonothan Broomhead (Durban CC) 17 (-) Ethan Smith (Paarl GC) 18 (19) Altin van der Merwe (Humewood GC) 19 (17) Oliver Goldhill (Magaliespark CC) 20…

We’re back on track for the Tokyo Olympics. The Olympic field is restricted to 60 players in each of the men’s and women’s competitions. The International Golf Federation (IGF) will use the Official World Golf Ranking as a method of determining participation. The top-15 world-ranked players will be eligible for the Olympics, with a limit of four players from any one country. Beyond the top IS, players will be eligible based on the World Ranking, with a maximum of two eligible players from each country that does not already have two or more players among the top IS. Men’s world No 1 Dustin Johnson has declared himself unavailable. South Africa’s two men’s golfers leading selections are Louis Oosthuizen and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, while Ashleigh Buhai and Lee-Anne Pace are the country’s top…

On the surface, maybe only driving distance and bunker play separate the brothers Ruan and Estiaan Conradie. Younger brother Estiaan, who is 23, seems to be the stud: he has been launching the ball an average of 308.33m off the tee this year on the Sunshine Tbur, while Ruan, 25, pokes it a much less impressive 277m. But Ruan can get up and down from bunkers far more successfully than Estiaan - at an 83.33% success rate compared to his brother’s 14.29. Tm always trying to get up there with him off the tee/ laughs Ruan. ‘Those are the days I live for. And as for the sand saves? I don’t know - maybe he just likes being on the beach a lot more than I do!’ There are those…

The PGA Tour’s first WGC event of the year was won by the rising star Collin Morikawa at The Concession Golf Club, a championship course co-designed by Tony Jacklin and Jack Nicklaus. The club was named in honour of the most sporting gesture in Ryder Cup history, as Nicklaus looked over a two- foot putt of Jacklin’s to halve the hole at the 1969 event He then went on to shock the entire golfing world by conceding the putt This resulted in the first tie in Ryder Cup history and the story continued in good spirits with Jacklin later saying to Nicklaus that he would never have missed anyway. To which Nicklaus replied. ‘I was never going to let you.’ On a sidenote. I was once in a similar position…

While the life of a professional golfer has moments of glitz and glamour, more than many other professions, we do have moments that are not that glamorous. More often than not these moments are highly stressful and costly. But sometimes, when looking back, they can be somewhat amusing. One such event happened to me a few weeks ago. After my result in Dubai I was given the opportunity to participate at the WGC-Workday Championship in Florida. There was just one problem my US visa had expired in November 2020. People asked me why I didn’t just renew it then … well, I had no reason to. At the end of 2020 I was ranked 200th in the world and had no planned events in the US. It just goes to…

The Titleist ball launched off the clubface of Justin Thomas’ 5-wood and soared towards the right-hand side of 18th fairway at TPC Sawgrass. As it began to take its hard loop back towards the water down the left, Thomas watched on as his tournament life hung helplessly in the balance. ‘Oh, for sure,’ he said afterwards. ‘I can’t lie, I thought it was very 50/50 if it was going to be dry or in the water.’ All Thomas knew was that his headspace was clear. The 27-year-old hadn’t come this far just to play it safe now. This was The Players Championship, after all – the marquee event on the PGA Tour schedule. And here was Thomas, coming off two of the most trying months of his professional career, just…

‘I’ve heard the winner of The Masters hosts the dinner. If I ever won it there would be no suits, no ties and McDonald’s’ - John Daly, who won two Majors, but not The Masters. Tradition dictates that the winner of The Masters gets to choose the menu for the following year’s pre-event dinner. Here’s a selection of some of the choices down the years. Dustin Johnson, 2020 winner: ‘I don’t know yet. Right now it’s all over the board.’ Tiger Woods, 2020: A sushi roll starter, then a mixed plate of steak and chicken, and a dessert trio of flan, churros and sopapillas, a Latin-inflected fried dough. Patrick Reed, 2010: A choice of Caesar salad or wedge salad to start, with the main dish a prime bone-in cowboy ribeye…

The Wild Coast Sun Country Club is part of the Wild Coast Sun and casino entertainment complex built where the Umtamvuna River spills out into the Indian Ocean. The course was built in 1983 by American golf course architect Robert Trent Jones Jr and has not been tweaked since then. It remains his only designed course in South Africa. Jones made every effort to incorporate the rugged natural surroundings into his design and because of that it is unique among his courses in that it moves away from his classic style of narrow fairways and large angled bunkers. Quite the opposite, in fact. As befits a holiday destination, many of the fairways are generous to cater for all levels of golfer, while most of the greens are medium in size…

Reverse-overlap This is the most popular method. All the fingers of the right hand - for a right-handed player - grip the club. The forefinger of the left hand overlaps one, two or three of the right-hand fingers. Vardon grip The little finger of the non-dominant hand (the one placed lower on the club] is placed between the index and middle finger of the lead hand (the dominant hand, the hand placed above). The lead (top) hand thumb fits along the lifeline of the trailing (bottom) hand. Crosshand Also known as the ‘left-hand low’ grip, this is one of the most popular alternatives to the reverse-overlap. The positions of the hands are reversed. Not only does this reduce wrist hinging, but it also lowers the left shoulder during set-up. This…

PICK OF THE MONTH THE MASTERS AUGUSTA NATIONAL 8–11 APRIL 2020 winner It feels just like yesterday that Dustin Johnson pulled on the Green Jacket for the first time. In fact, it was November, when The Masters took place seven months later than scheduled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Johnson overcame a shaky start to his final round to wrap up a second Major, as he shot a four-under-par B8 for a five-stroke victory. He led throughout the final round, though only by one stroke early on, and did not drop a shot in the final 13 holes on his way to a 20-under-par 268 total, a tournament-record low score at Augusta National. Australian Cameron Smith and South Korean Sungjae Im kept Johnson honest, both shooting 69 to tie for…

Memories easily fade in our mad-rush, 24-hours-per- day, seven-days-a-week world. And when you factor in the numbing Covid-19 pandemic that has gripped the globe for more than a year, there’s not a lot of time that’s been saved for nostalgia. Which is a shame when one considers the superb. talents that were once in the possession of Tim Clark, but are now covered in cobwebs. Gutty as it was that Clark rose to PGA Tour prominence despite being born with a left arm that could not be extended [thus he could not supinate), his career deserves more than anniversary footnotes. To wit: The recently held Players Championship was the 10th since Clark posted a stirring come-from-behind victory in 2010. And it was just five years ago, at the 2016 American…