Ken Borland

People may soon be permitted to play golf as the Covid-19 Lockdown regulations are eased, but for professional golfers it is likely that they will only return to competition in the summer.

The massive interruption to global golf will have a ripple effect and South Africa’s major tournaments such as the Nedbank Golf Challenge are now only likely to take place close to the end of the year. Complicating matters is the fact that the Masters is now scheduled to take place from November 12-15, which was when this year’s Sun City mega-event was meant to be held.

“Golf RSA and the PGA have sent a proposal to the minister of sport about opening golf courses for amateur use, but when we will be able to host a professional event, we just don’t know. Golf clubs are going to be a lot stricter when they reopen – things like two-balls only and no caddies – and that proposal doesn’t help us yet,” Thomas Abt, the deputy commissioner of the Sunshine Tour, told The Citizen.

“As far as the Sunshine Tour goes, we need the people element at golf. The golfers will be willing to do their thing behind closed doors, but the sponsors want the camaraderie of the Pro-Am and the hospitality opportunities, so it is very difficult to sell golf without any spectators to them.

“As far as the Nedbank Golf Challenge goes, we are engaging with the European Tour, Nedbank and Sun International, and it looks like we will change the date to a couple of weeks later. That cannot be 100% confirmed though until we see a potential world calendar. The U.S. PGA is meant to start on June 8 and the European Tour is hoping to get back underway in August.

“But they will initially be playing behind closed doors because they have certain brands who are happy to do that. Hopefully here in South Africa we will be all ready to go by the end of the year,” Abt said.

The deputy commissioner said that there is a big push within the Sunshine Tour to make watching golf – either on TV or at the course – more attractive to the younger generation. To that end, they have been running virtual matches between Sunshine Tour pros using a digitised version of Glendower Golf Club on PlayStation’s The Golf Club game.

“The biggest thing is that we have a captive audience that loves pro golf but we’re also looking outside that to a younger viewership. We need to move out of our boundaries, push the boundaries a bit and the public seem to love it. People want to hear how the golfers approach a course like Glendower, they want to see the personalities, what sort of guy Brandon Stone really is for instance.

“Women’s tennis has the youngest viewership globally while golf on TV is currently watched by people aged 55 and over. Which is why we are heavily moving into things like Instagram as well to take golf to a much younger market, which allows for more longevity in terms of support. We do these things for fun but at the end of the day the economic climate shows the importance of them,” Abt said.

A census of the last four International teams to participate in the Presidents Cup shows that anything from six to nine different countries, from three to five continents, have been represented in each edition of the biennial golf match against the United States. Which poses a considerable challenge in terms of creating a team unity between such disparate cultures and languages as Australian, Chinese and Chilean.

Which is why newly-appointed International captain Trevor Immelman has said he is going to lean heavily on the culture created by his predecessor, fellow South African Ernie Els, in the 2021 event at Quail Hollow in North Carolina. Els, faced with the most diverse team in Presidents Cup history, with nine countries represented from five continents, spearheaded the toughest challenge the United States have experienced in the event for many years, the Americans eventually having to come from behind on the last day to win 16-14.

“Though we were unable to deliver Ernie a win at Royal Melbourne last year, the legacy that he established in his time as captain is something I hope to build on moving forward. I can’t wait to continue adding to the platform he created for us. Ernie knew that he needed to find a way to create a family dynamic among our team, and we felt that over the years that might have been what was missing.

“It’s a pretty big hurdle to try and overcome when you have players coming from nine different countries, with their own cultures and languages, in just one week. Ernie really went out of his way to build unity amongst the group and that worked in our favour. That was something he wanted to create for further down the road too. He really felt like our team needed some kind of identity. With the creation of a new International Team logo, that identity was born.

“What he did for us is going to be a turning point for the International team. We have the blueprint that will hopefully lead us to victory, we had amazing chemistry in our team room down in Australia. And it translated on to the golf course, where our guys really did compete as one unit, and we came so close to pulling it off,” Immelman, who was an assistant captain in Melbourne, said in his PGA Tour player diary this week.

Immelman made his name globally by winning the 2008 Masters, beating Tiger Woods by three strokes, but wrist, elbow and back injuries then put his playing career into intermission. He made a comeback on the European Tour and re-entered the top 500 in the world rankings in 2018, but it is his work as a TV analyst that has mostly preserved his high profile. It will also help him in sifting through the talent at his disposal as captain.

“They are literally and figuratively massive shoes for me to fill, but I think we have a nice plan going forward. I’m going to draw on all sorts of different things that I’ve picked up over the years from a leadership standpoint from successful people all over the globe and all walks of life. But we’re going to be having a great time, we’re going to have great communication and there’s going to be a lot of attention to detail.

“In the last two years we’ve had a number of youngsters step up as some of the best golfers in the world. We have a lot of different players starting to play really well, guys who were on the fringes of the team last time around. We had a group of 12 in Melbourne and now I can cast a bigger net and create a group of 30 to 40 golfers, and start to get the camaraderie going,” Immelman said.

Monique Smit may not play the most magnificent attacking golf or have been lavished with the most talent when it comes to the South African women’s game, but what she does have in generous quantities is mental strength and that priceless commodity known as BMT.

The ability to play the percentages to perfection has seen the 29-year-old from George reigning at number one on the Sunshine Ladies Tour’s order of merit and she was also all set to compete in Europe before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

The way she qualified for Europe is the story that exemplifies her BMT best. At the Ladies European Tour Qualifying School, won by Amy Boulden of Wales, at La Manga in Spain back in January, Smit won the 20^th and final card in a four-way playoff. The fact that she managed to do it so soon after her mother, Rejeanne, who had been her caddy for six years, passed away from cancer in November, made it even more remarkable.

“That was just a surreal day from start to finish. There were so many mixed emotions. The first time I played in Europe was eight years ago and my Mom was with me, those were such beautiful memories. But then not being able to tell her I had won my card made it bittersweet. To come through nine such competitive rounds and make the final cut was unbelievable to achieve,” Smit told Compleat Golfer.

“I spoke to my Dad before the final round and it was almost like my Mom’s hands were around mine for that final birdie putt on the 18th. I wasn’t nervous and I had no doubt that I could do it, even though it was crazy to be in a four-way playoff.

“I smashed my Driver on the first playoff hole, it was a good one and I knew I could get on in two on the par-five. It was 190 metres and I hit a three-wood into the middle of the green, I could just see myself hitting that shot. I then made a two-putt birdie and the Frenchwoman [Manon Gidali] made a 20-footer for birdie, the rest all made pars.

“I hit a good drive again on our second go down 18, but this time there was a bit more wind coming in and I didn’t feel as comfortable going for the green in two. So I left myself a nice full wedge coming in instead, and I hit it about 10 feet left of the flag. I wasn’t sure of the line so I asked Clara [Pietri, the Swiss pro who was caddying for her] and she said half-a-ball left and in it went. Manon’s putt wasn’t so good.

“So it was amazing to do something I had been planning for since April last year, but it was empty in some ways because I could not share it with my Mom. And then it was straight back home and into the Sunshine Ladies Tour … ” Smit said.

Smit, who is an only child and took up the game as a youngster when her father told her to join him on a course in George, certainly showed her maturity back home as she beat compatriots Stacy Bregman and Lejan Lewthwaite to the order of merit title.

Although Smit missed out on winning the SA Women’s Open at Westlake in mid-March, and qualification for the British Women’s Open that went with first place (English rookie Alice Hewson claimed those prizes), she still managed to finish second, which was enough to give her the order of merit title and a R100 000 bonus.

Once again it came down to a putt – a 30-footer for par on the last hole.

“It was absolutely amazing finishing off that way. Going into the SA Open, Lejan hadn’t had the best of tournaments at Glendower and had slipped to second, while Stacy had catapulted her way into first by finishing second in the Jabra Ladies Classic and I was third. There was about a 500 points difference between me and Stacy so I knew there was an outside chance.

“So you go through the constant calculations of points all the time, wondering who’s lying where? You just can’t control it because so many things need to happen correctly, but going into the last day I knew I still had a chance. But I had so many birdie opportunities but just absolutely nothing would drop. I had 11 straight pars and not one birdie, so, standing on the 18^th green, I said, ‘you know what Mom, nothing has happened today, so this one is for you’. Then about a foot before the hole I knew that putt was going to be in,” Smit said.

Even being seven shots behind going into the final round does not bleach Smit’s resolve, as she showed in winning the Joburg Ladies Open at Soweto Country Club at the end of February.

So where does this BMT come from?

“I don’t think I was born with it, but I’ve managed to learn how to obtain it in the last eight years. When I was first on tour, I couldn’t make a cut to save my life. When I went from amateur golf to being a pro, I thought I had to make a complete overhaul of my game. It was only in the last three or four years, since I did my PGA qualification, that I’ve learnt that the essence is to stick to basics, just your basics, make them as strong as possible,” Smit explained.

She has also had to endure much hardship in her career, which has undoubtedly hardened her mentally.

First she suffered a serious knee injury in early 2018, which forced her to undergo surgery.

“I’ve been through a lot of heartache. I used to do extreme running and explosive exercises and then one day my knee pad went into my meniscus, so I needed emergency surgery. Dr Spike Erasmus said I must take it seriously but if I did my rehab right then I should get there. Plus in Sandra Winter [a multiple amateur champion] I had one of the best physios, especially with her knowledge of golf. I practically grew up in front of her in George.

“So I took it one day at a time, but I realised how much I missed competitive golf. I thought maybe I’m not finished my playing career yet. It’s been a roller-coaster but there have been so many joys and small personal victories,” four-time Sunshine Ladies Tour winner Smit said.

She was back by November 2018 but then a year later, tragedy struck when her mother passed away.

“It was on the final day of the Soweto tournament last year that I got the phone call that confirmed that my Mom had pancreatic cancer and my life changed. I still went over to Europe and played on the LET Access Tour and made a couple of cuts.

“But she was always the first one to phone me. Now I have a new reality. But I still play as if she is caddying for me, you have to find a way of dealing with it. She was always my caddy and travelled with me, those were such beautiful memories. I’m still coming to terms with it,” Smit admitted.

But with her game in great shape and the confidence of being No.1 in South Africa this year, Smit can now look forward to really making her mark in Europe. “I definitely feel that I’m now at my peak, although I need to keep working on my consistency over three rounds. I don’t want to have one good round and then a poor round that makes me lose ground on the leaderboard. But it was fantastic for me to win the order of merit, it proves that what I’m doing is on the right track,” Smit said.

New Presidents Cup Internationals team captain Trevor Immelman is keen to build on the foundation laid by Ernie Els and has warned that his side will have a lot of exciting youngsters providing great depth as they look to end the eight-match winning streak of the United States.

Els led the Internationals to one of their best ever showings in December as they were edged out 16-14 at Royal Melbourne Golf Club by the Americans, captained by Tiger Woods. Immelman is the youngest ever captain to be appointed – he will be 41 when the Presidents Cup is played again in September 2021 at Quail Hollow, beating the mark set by Woods, who was coming to the end of his 44th year in December.

And Immelman is banking on an injection of youth to make the International team even more competitive next year.

“I was part of Ernie’s team for the last Presidents Cup and I will try and continue his legacy and I really look forward to building on the platform he created. It’s an amazing honour to follow in the footsteps of Ernie Els and Gary Player as the Internationals captain. They have both been mentors and great friends of mine, whose advice I have relied on through my life.

“In the last two years we’ve had a number of youngsters step up as some of the best golfers in the world. We have a lot of different players starting to play really well, guys who were on the fringes of the team last time around. We had a group of 12 in Melbourne and now I can cast a bigger net and create a group of 30 to 40 golfers, and start to get the camaraderie going,” Immelman told OFM radio’s Morgan Piek this week.

The 2008 Masters (again beating Woods) and two-time SA Open champion mentioned players such as Koreans Sungjae Im and Byeong Hun-An, Cameron Smith, Jazz Janewattananond, Pebble Beach winner Nick Taylor and Corey Conners as being amongst the young talent that is making him excited about being the seventh Internationals captain.

Not that the Cape Town-born Immelman is discounting a healthy contingent of his countrymen making the cut in 2021.

“There are the more experienced guys I grew up with like Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen, but South Africa has such a rich history of golfers performing at the highest level and winning the biggest championships – guys like Charl Schwartzel, who is coming back from injury and showing good form, and Branden Grace, who won the SA Open recently.

“Plus there’s someone like Erik van Rooyen, who has been playing some beautiful golf on the PGA Tour, and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who is competing against the best in the world and showing what he can do,” Immelman said.