Innehållsförteckning för April 2023 från Compleat Golfer

Scheffler now heads to Augusta as defending champion but there hasn't been a back-to-back winner since Tiger Woods in 2001 and 2002. In seeing off Tyrrell Hatton to win by five on 17 under par, with Viktor Hovland and Tom Hoge tied third two shots further back, Scheffler returned to the top of the World Rankings. The American shot five birdies on the trot midway through his round to race away from the field as he closed with a three-under 69. Scheffler overtook Jon Rahm at the top of the ranking after the Spaniard pulled out of the tournament following the first round because of illness. Our cover story is on another great winner, Ashleigh Buhai, who won her fourth Investec SA Women’s Open on her first visit to Steenberg…

BRANDON STONE This month: Tennis at Wimbledon Growing up in a sporty family we've always loved all kinds of sports. So it’s no surprise that the Stone family is a fan of tennis. The most appealing tournament is of course Wimbledon. To me is the Augusta National of tennis. There’s a different energy and aura around the place. It also happened to be on my mother's bucket list, so when the opportunity to go presented itself, I jumped at the opportunity. I told my mom to pack a bag, flew her to London, and the next thing we knew we were walking through the gates of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. My first impressions were the same as when I first walked around Augusta National. The place…

Competitive golf can be lonely. You will often be required to manage the highs and lows of tournament play, sometimes even processing the associated emotions daily. On the one hand, there is the elation of victory, pulling off challenging shots and promising passages of inspired play and on the other the lows of missed putts, silly mistakes and cruel blows. The ability to shrug off disappointment and 'get back in the saddle', or try again, is an essential enabler of your long-term success. Knowing how to pick yourself up, gain from the experience and put yourself out there again. And doing that repeatedly. That is what the pundits call 'grit', popularly defined as 'choosing to hang on when you desperately want to let go'. Along the journey, you may find…

Short and pudgy, he pushed through the crowd, elbowing and worming his way, not stopping for any of the cries of 'heyyy, watchit!' as he went. At last he popped through to the front and craned his neck down the line, wide-eyed, hoping to see what he had come for. As Tiger Woods strode past, Jack Nicholson slapped him on the back and grinned, same as everybody else It didn't matter who you were; if you were there the week everything changed in golf, you just had to reach out and touch a piece of history. Almost 50 years to the day after Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's colour barrier, at Augusta National, a club that no black man was allowed to join until six years ago, at the…

What is that old African proverb? You can take the boy out of the bush, but you can't take the bush out of the boy? So it has proved with Johann Rupert. Forbes confirm that the billionaire has a net worth of $ll-billion which makes him the second-richest person on the African continent. Bloomberg's index calculates the South African businessman's net worth closer to $12bn. But splitting hairs about his fortune is not why we are talking. We're not speaking about wealth that can be counted in dollars and cents, or tangible assets. No, it cuts deeper than that. Johann Rupert is a son of the South African soil, with Africa coursing through his veins. Born and raised in Stellenbosch, he has grown to become an instantly recognisable global citizen,…

Each month we examine an image taken by Roger Sedres, the 2022 South African Photographer of the Year. This was taken during the South African Open held at Pearl Valley in December 2007. 'It actually rained for much of the week and here I came across Ernie Els in I came across Ernie Els in a quiet moment with his caddie in the final round. I felt the image was powerful, and if anything showed that golf really is about players taking on the golf course and elements than themselvves' James Kingston went on to win the tittle…

Amanda Rose @AmandaGolf59 The most (only) relatable thing Rory McIlroy has every done on a golf course TheGolfDivoTee™ @TheGolfDivoTee Ernie Els at his Wentworth home with the most famous and coveted trophy in golf. New York Post @nypost Rory McIlroy opens Players Championship with rough opening round Third Leg Bets @ThirdLegBets Rory McIlroy that shirt is NOT doing you any favors my friend #PGATour Barbara Vincent @VarvaraLynn So I have this @TigerWoods print and cant find out WHO actually took this photograph? Can anyone help me find the photographer info? The photo originally belonged to Dennis Hopper. Thank you in advance! #Masters #PGA #TigerWoods #AugustaNational GassDonny84 @gass_donny84 Golf has had many rivalries, but few have the drama and intrigue that are defining the current feud between Rory McIlroy and Patrick…

REINARD KILIAN RULES It’s been an interesting time on the Sunshine Tour in terms of the Rules and more specifically a few Local Rules which we brought in during the co-sanctioned tournaments with the European Challenge Tour. The first interesting scenario we had was during the Nelson Mandela Bay Championship at Humewood Golf Club. Windy conditions made club selection difficult and this resulted in a player misjudging the distance on the 10th hole and overshooting the green. His golf ball ended up in the bush. Unknown to the players, it was stuck in one of the branches above ground. But while searching for it, another player accidentally moved the branch and the ball fell to the ground. At this point, the players were unsure of what to do. The Rules…

From the top professionals who have tackled it from the back tees, to the ladies and seniors who must produce their best form from the forward tees, Firethorn brings out the competitor in everyone. At the highest level, Retief Goosen won the SA Open here in 1995 by beating Ernie Els by five strokes, Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace have won that title here in the past five years. It's a course that sees quality play rewarded. Set in Johannesburg's northern suburb of Randburg, Firethom is the 'senior' course at the club, ahead of the slightly easier Bushwillow track. The course has plenty of defence to protect par. It is long, has lots of thick rough, features plenty of water and well-placed bunkering, and has large, undulating greens. Even though…

Kyra van Kan spoke about ‘third time’s the charm' in her interview ahead of the 36-hole final of the 2023 South African Amateur Championships, referring to her runner-up finishes twice before at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club. Whether it was a venue change or her rising confidence that brought a change in fortune we'll never know, but the Golf RSA No 1 ditched the bridesmaid tag in the most memorable fashion at Mount Edgecombe Country Club Estate in February. ‘I'm lost for words,' said the ecstatic champion after making up for her nearmisses with a comprehensive 11 & 10 victory over Free State's Ellandri van Heerden on The Woods Course. ‘I was playing really well, and I had a lot of confidence out there. I set myself up for…

ASHLEIGH BUHAI COLUMN It’s been a whirlwind few weeks - the SA Women’s Open was my fourth tournament week in a row. The year started with an event in the US, then we played the Aramco Saudi Ladies International and the Honda LPGA Thailand in February, and then the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore in early March. They were pretty big trips too, with lots of travelling. We made history at the Aramco LET event in Saudi where we played for $5-million, the same purse the men played for on the Asian Tour at the same venue, Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, two weeks before us. So that was pretty cool. It was my first time playing there. We were in the middle of nowhere but the event…

MARTIN VORSTER Within the space of seven weeks lasy yar, Martin Vorster began to believe. There was finish at the SunBet Challenge at the Wild Coast Sun Country Club, then a sixth-place finish at the Vodacom Origins of Golf Final fifth- place finish at the South African PGA Championship at St Francis Links. That's when the 21-year-old former top-ranked South African amateur and rising Sunshine Tour professional received confirmation of that one thing above all that rookie professional golfers want jto know, even before any new swing thoughts or putting techniques. "That's when I started to feel like I belong out here,' he says as we sit in the shadow of the grand old Humewood Golf Club clubhouse. ‘When I turned pro, I knew I was good enough, but it…

RYAN CAIRNS COLUMN As the new wrap-around season for the Sunshine Tour draws nearer, I often get asked a lot of questions by the 'young bucks’, their parents or potential sponsors. Anything from how to navigate their way through Qualifying School, to the costs incurred throughout the year in the tournaments preceding the most dreaded week in professional golf. During these clubhouse-lounge conversations, there are often innocent bystanders who listen in to the facts, figures, pitfalls and realities of a career choice as a tournament-playing professional. The look of horror on most of their faces when the cards are laid bare on the table has prompted me to share this with you. Assuming ‘Player A qualifies for any of the above Tours, he will then be awarded a Tour card…

For several decades, Augusta National's iconic par-five 13th was the nonpareil 'risk and reward' golf hole, the standard-bearer for drama, entertainment and shot- making. The risk of going for the green in two? Sending your ball splashing into Rae's Creek short of the green. The reward? A near-certain birdie and a high possibility of an eagle at a crucial stage in the round. The risk of laying up? Severely limiting your chances of an eagle. The reward? A par, at the year worst. These days, such thoughts seldom enter a golfer's mind. Why would they? Divested of its threat by a potent mix of modern equipment, the athleticism of current professionals and extraordinary advancements in greenkeeping technology, the final leg of 'Amen Corner' is in the throes of an existential…

GARY LEMKE COLUMN Golf's civil war is coughing up casualties. Like many wars, soldiers are sent to the frontline under false pretences, only to find the situation wasn't what they signed up for. And like any war, the only time there's a winner is when peace breaks out. Golf's war has divided the sport, in an age when #GrowTheGame is supposed to trend. People who ordinarily have the clearest of minds in the most testing of circumstances, like a heart surgeon performing a triple bypass, have allowed themselves to gel swayed by opinion LIV Golf was supposed to be #GolfButLouder Greg Norman promised it was the future of the sport and that people - players, fans, sponsors, media - had grown tired of the 'traditional' major Tours. The PGA had…

SIGNATURE HOLE 17th hole, par three, 192m The par-three 17th epitomises the Firethorn course: long, tough and challenging. There are very few short' holes played on the European Tour that are as long or perilous. With water all the way down the lefthand side of the hole, it's easy to decide to keep to the right But there's no margin for error Tour-calibre players will probably opt to aim tor the middle of the green and then hope to hole a putt for birdie Most of them will be happy to walk off with a par The birdie here is a massive bonus As an example, at the 2022 Joburg Open, over the final two rounds, there were only seven birdies recorded 84 pars and 36 bogeys, along with a…

MEN OPEN 1 (1) Jonathan Broomhead (Durban CC) 2 (3) Aldrich Potgieter (Pinnacle Point GC) 3 (2) Kyle de Beer (Port Elizabeth GC) 4 (5) Daniel Bennett (Royal Durban GC) 5 (6) Altin van der Merwe (Humewood GC) 6 (4) Simon du Plooy (Krugersdorp GC) 7 (12) Jordan Burnand (Ebotse GC) 8 (14) Francois van der Wait (Silver Lakes CC) 9 (9) Jordan Wessels (Mooinooi GC) 10 (17) Fabrizio de Abreu (Woodhlll CC) 11 (10) Warwick Purchase (Benoni CC) 12 (11) Ivan Verster (Pinnacle Point GC) 13 (7) Behn Heyns (Silver Lakes CC) 14 (-) Werner Devzel (Woodhill CC) 15 (13) Lean Pierre van der Watt (Humewood GC) 16 (15) Joshua Koekemoer (Silver Lakes CC) 17 (18) Johan Christian Kriek (Pretoria CC) 18 (-) Pascal Gunther [Bryanston CC) 19 (-)…

Now in its second year, the G4D (Golf for the Disabled) Tour is made up of nine events, giveng the world's leading players with a disablity the chancce to compete in the new Order of Mert: Eight of the toumements coincide with a toumament on the DP World Tour, with players taking on the same course during the same tournament week. Similar to the main Tour, the G4D Tour culminates in the G4D Tour @ DP World Tour Championship, which is a Rolex Series Event But who are these golfers who are plying their trade among their able-bodied colleagues? And just how good are they? 1 Kipp Popert (England) Popert is the current world No 1 disability golfer and the winner of last year's G4D Tour Order of merit. The…