Ken Borland

BRANDEN Grace’s Masters debut at Augusta next week will be his fifth appearance in a Major championship, but what is different this time around is that the 24-year-old really feels he belongs on golf’s greatest stage.

In a whirlwind rise to fame, Grace played in the three other Majors last year, finishing in a tie for 51st place at the US Open and tied 77th at the British Open, for which he had previously qualified in 2009, finishing tied 43rd. He missed the cut at the PGA Championship.

Grace began 2012 ranked No265 in the world, but successive wins at the Joburg Open and the Volvo Golf Champions lifted him into the top 100, and victory in the China Open in mid-April ensured his ranking was high enough to make the rest of the Majors that year.

But his ascension was so rapid, Grace felt a little like an outsider needing to prove himself.

This year, having been comfortably ensconced inside the top 40 since his victory last October in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, he feels right at home.

“Obviously I’ve changed a lot, last year made me a better player and person, just in the way I handle myself: even when things aren’t going great, I can find a way to make it happen. Obviously I was disappointed with the last Major and missing the cut, but there was always that little bit of extra pressure last year.

“This year I don’t have to worry, I’m No32 in the world, I can just go out and enjoy myself. I don’t have to worry and think I have to play well, I don’t need to worry about what people think. I’m in a good place,” Grace told BDlive in a teleconference on Tuesday.

Grace is one of eight South Africans in the prestigious Augusta field, joining Tim Clark, George Coetzee, Louis Oosthuizen, Ernie Els, Charl Schwartzel, Richard Sterne and Trevor Immelman, and may yet make an even bigger name for himself at America’s most hallowed course.

“The other South Africans are just as excited as me and they think Augusta could suit me because I hit the ball pretty straight, I can shape it a bit and my lob-wedge is good too. I just need to get sharper on my putting so that I don’t worry about the little five- or six-footers you get,” Grace said.

The 2012 Sunshine Tour Order of Merit winner will be going into the Masters after successive missed cuts at the Houston Open and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, but he feels his game is quickly regaining the same levels as in January, when he claimed three top-10 finishes.

“It’s getting back there, even though the last couple of weeks didn’t go to plan. But I’ve made good progress although the scores don’t show that. I’m hitting the ball like I did in January and by Sunday I’ll be ready and then the excitement will hopefully take care of the rest.”

 http://www.bdlive.co.za/sport/othersport/2013/04/04/grace-feels-at-home-on-golfs-greatest-stage

Currie Cup rugby players, franchise cricketers and Premiership footballers will dominate the sporting headlines this weekend, but some of them will take time to think back and remember the largely anonymous people operating at amateur level who made such a big difference to their careers.

Similarly, I will remember this last week for the two reminders it gave me of the many people toiling out of love for the game rather than money. In the sports journalists’ industry, we tend to focus on the small elite triangle at the top of the pyramid, while the thousands of amateur and social players and administrators that are the base – the very foundation – are largely ignored.

Take David Bagg, Gordon Brews and Mike Klatz.

At great personal expense and effort, they have restored Huddle Park, the famous Johannesburg municipal golf course, to its former glory; how successful they have been is borne out by the Sunshine Tour hosting their annual – and hugely popular – Media Challenge there this week.

In the last two years they have taken a derelict, overgrown property that had been abandoned by the City of Johannesburg and turned it into a friendly, first-class facility. They had to remove numerous squatters to do so, but they have employed over 80 people and are providing training in greenskeeping and hospitality, as well as once again providing a cheap pay-and-play option (R190pm membership, as little as R90 for a midweek round) for the public who want to get into golf but cannot afford the exorbitant membership fees of the established clubs.

Apart from restoring one of the most popular courses in Johannesburg – between 150 000 and 200 000 rounds of golf were played at Huddle Park annually in the 1970s – to its rightful place, the trio have also developed a mashie course, a floodlit driving range, a coaching academy, restaurant and sports bar, function venues, walking trails and even a trout-fishing dam as tie-ins.

Future plans include a mountain bike trail, cycle track, zip-lining facility, eco park, gym, beer and food festivals and arts and crafts expos as the Public Private Partnership provides a fun space for the community.

Many Johannesburg golfers learnt the game on the spacious fairways of Huddle Park and it is great news that the 75-year-old parkland green lung will continue for many more years.

Bad news I received this week was the passing on of Dave Edmondson, a legendary figure in KwaZulu-Natal sport who played an important part in setting me on my path to sports journalism as a career.

In 1992, when I was on the University of Natal Pietermaritzburg sports executive, I approached Dave, who was the head of sport, to find out what careers were available in sport (sadly, actually making it on the field wasn’t going to be an option!).

He suggested writing about sport and he approached another legend, John Bishop, at The Natal Witness and six months later my career was launched.

The University of Natal sports department did not have nearly as many resources as the likes of Tuks, Maties or UCT, but Dave gathered together some tremendous sportsmen and women during his time – Jonty Rhodes, Mark Andrews and Greg Nicol being amongst the most famous of them.

During his own playing days, Dave represented Natal and South African Universities as a hockey goalkeeper, played Natal U19 rugby and was a premier league cricketer. He went on to become a Natal cricket selector, the president of the Maritzburg Cricket Association and an honorary life president of KZN cricket.

But the mark of the man was the time he was willing to spend – for little material reward – enhancing the careers of others. A nicer man you couldn’t hope to meet and the encouragement and assistance he gave many future stars as a coach, schoolmaster and administrator is the point of sport, even if his name was not at the top of the triangle.

These have been interesting times for the organisers of the co-sanctioned events that highlight the summer golf season in South Africa, but the Sunshine Tour is expected to release details of at least the first half of the lucrative schedule this week.

The delay has mainly been due to the uncertainty of when to stage the South African Open, the flagship event of the summer and one for which the Sunshine Tour recently regained the commercial rights.

Unfortunately, the European Tour shifted their Volvo World Matchplay Championship from May to this week in the schedule, pushing their Tour Championship out to November 20-23, the week which had been used by the SA Open in recent years.

In what they described as “a shift in golf sponsorship strategy to focus on customers”, this will be the last time Volvo sponsor the famous matchplay event and they have also pulled the plug on the European Tour’s tournament of winners, the Volvo Golf Champions, which has been hosted by South Africa for the last three years.

While the loss of a high-profile European Tour event like that is obviously a great pity, it has left a gap in the schedule that could well now be filled by the SA Open.

January 8-11, 2015, is now the likely date of the SA Open and the talk amongst the pros is that Glendower Golf Club will once again host the prestigious event, for which big developments are expected in the near future.

The Sunshine Tour could lose another co-sanctioned event with the Nelson Mandela Championship in doubt due to both sponsorship and scheduling issues, taking the number of European Tour events in South Africa this summer down to six.

The Nedbank Golf Challenge will continue its strong new relationship with the European Tour from December 4-7 at Sun City, with the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek being held the following week.

Insiders say the Joburg, Africa and Tshwane Opens should all take place next year, although scheduling challenges do exist.

If the Nelson Mandela Championship does get the go-ahead, it could be staged at the Wild Coast Sun, moving from Durban, according to the professionals.

Ross Fisher celebrates victory for the first time in nearly four years

A top-class display of patient golf saw Ross Fisher claim a three-stroke victory in the European Tour/Sunshine Tour co-sanctioned Tshwane Open at the Els Club Copperleaf on Sunday.

Fisher began the final day with a five-shot lead but had to endure an impressive challenge from Northern Irishman Michael Hoey and also some pressure from Spaniard Carlos del Moral before posting a two-under-par 70 to finish on 20-under-par and claim a fifth European Tour victory after a winning drought of nearly four years.

The Englishman laboured around the front nine in one-under 35, his iron play and putting lacking the brilliant sharpness of the previous two days, and Hoey closed to within a stroke after sinking a 25-foot birdie putt on the 11^th hole, to follow up an eagle on the par-five fourth and birdies at the first and eighth holes.

But Hoey then saw his approach shot on the par-four 12^th slide into the water hazard protecting the green, leading to a double-bogey, and he eventually finished with a 68 to trail Fisher by three strokes.

Del Moral twice closed to within two shots of Fisher, but erred crucially with bogeys on the 14^th and 17^th holes, finishing alone in fourth place on 16-under.

Young South African Danie van Tonder produced the round of the day with a 66 to finish tied in second place with Hoey, taking R1.7 million from his best-ever finish on the summer tour.

Fisher sealed victory on the 578-metre 15^th hole when he rolled in a superb eagle putt from 20 feet to give him a four-shot lead.

“I was 263 metres from the pin after a real good drive and then I really ripped a hybrid, probably the flushest I’ve hit for a long time. That was a massive turning point, I couldn’t buy a putt before that, and then I didn’t have to push any more, I didn’t have to take driver coming in,” Fisher said after his triumph.

“I knew patience would be the biggest thing today, just hitting the green and making the other guys get birdies. And Mike hitting into the water on 12 was also a big thing, it gave me a breather,” the 33-year-old said.

Fisher also had to handle the additional challenges posed by almost-continual rain and then a blustery wind.

“The weather wasn’t kind and it wasn’t quite the fireworks and spectacular golf I hoped for. The eagle on four by Mike really pushed me, but I felt like I was giving myself chances and the birdie on seven was a very good one, there were many bogeys there today. I then felt I had some shots to spare because the back nine has been very kind to me,” he said.

The 2010 Ryder Cup player is now back into the top 65 on the world rankings and closer to his goal of making the top 50 and once again competing in the majors and the famous team event between Europe and the United States.

Behind the impressive Van Tonder, Hennie Otto, the 2011 SA Open champion, was the next best South African, a 68 in the final round leaving him alone in fifth place on 15-under.

http://citizen.co.za/136519/fisher-claims-three-stroke-victory-tshwane-open/