Ken Borland

Five South Africans are going to be teeing it up at the Masters tournament at Augusta from Thursday, but the bad news is that all but one of them have been going in the wrong direction in the world rankings and will be entering the first, and arguably most prestigious, Major of the year without good form behind them.

Erik van Rooyen is the South African golfer enjoying the best year thus far, playing with reasonable consistency to move from 65^th in the rankings at the start of the year to 62^nd at present, with five top-30 finishes in eight tournaments. His best performance came in the Dubai Desert Classic when he tied for fourth, so he at least carries some momentum into the tournament and is considered a dark horse in some quarters, even with that weird facial hair.

Louis Oosthuizen is always the South African golfer who attracts the most attention, especially given his stellar record in Majors, but this week he will be having more eyes than ever in his general direction because he is going to be playing in the same three-ball as Tiger Woods, who is making a dramatic return to golf following his serious car accident 14 months ago in which he suffered serious leg injuries.

Oosthuizen is typically under-the-radar leading into Majors, and has slipped from 13^th to 15^th in the world, with two top-30 finishes in only five events. But South Africa’s highest-ranked golfer had an outstanding 2021 in the Majors, finishing tied-third, second, tied-second and tied-26^th in the Masters. He was the runner-up at Augusta in 2012, famously won by Bubba Watson.

Charl Schwartzel is another former champion who is going to be playing this week, but the 2011 winner has dropped to 169^th in the world rankings and has missed the cut in his last six tournaments. He did, however, finish third in the 2017 Masters.

Garrick Higgo is another South African who is hoping to overcome a run of bad form as he has missed his last three cuts. In fact he has not finished in the top-20 since his breakthrough win at the Palmetto Championship last year.

The fifth South African, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, is at least going to the Masters with some reasonable form behind him, finishing in the top-30 four times in nine events this year. He made the cut in both his previous starts at Augusta.

Scottie Scheffler is the new No.1 golfer in the world and the hottest competitor coming in, but he will be challenged strongly in the tipping stakes by Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka.

Cameron Smith and Xander Schauffele are dark horses in the 90-stroing field, while one can never discount Dustin Johnson.

The record of the Proteas Women’s team for 2021 is rather a potted one because they have only played two series this year, and the bad news is there is nothing concrete on their horizon either before the ODI World Cup in New Zealand in March.

South Africa’s only fixtures in the last seven months have been a successful series against Pakistan in Durban and then a triumphant short tour to India. The Emerging Proteas side played four matches in Bangladesh.

Despite this lack of match action, and the disruptions caused by Covid lockdowns, coach Hilton Moreeng has been ensuring they stay tight as a squad with a series of short camps. And the Women’s Proteas are currently spending the week together training in Pretoria.

“Since the India tour, the great challenge has been getting together. We’ve been trying to get together at least once a month, but even this camp is now a month overdue. But I’m just glad to be able to have the players who are in the country together under one roof. Because using facilities is a challenge during Lockdown, the team has been working on fitness because that’s one thing we can control.

“I’m very happy with that and a lot of conditioning work has been done because we are going into a longer format World Cup, for which we will need more fitness. That’s the bigger picture – the ODI World Cup in New Zealand. Hopefully in the next week or two some things will be confirmed in terms of fixtures before then. That’s what we’re anticipating, which is why we’re making sure the players at home are ready,” Moreeng said on Wednesday.

The experienced Proteas coach said the team cannot arrive at the World Cup with just one or two warm-up games under their belts.

“We will probably have the Women’s Super League in the pre-season and then go into our domestic season if all goes well. But the challenge is for them to play together as a team; in T20s you can find ways to compete but ODI cricket is much longer and the team needs to play together, especially since we don’t know our squad yet for the World Cup. We have to make sure we are ready when we land in New Zealand and we can’t just expect that playing one or two games,” Moreeng said.

One positive has been the returns to action of regular captain Dane van Niekerk, who has immediately shown stellar form, and Chloe Tryon in The Hundred competition in England after lengthy injury layoffs.

New coach Grant Morgan has just completed his first week at the Dolphins amidst a sea of bad news for the KwaZulu-Natal franchise, but as a dogged former cricketer he says the challenges will be turned into positives.

The Dolphins have lost marquee stars in David Miller and Kyle Abbott, international all-rounder Ryan McLaren and up-and-coming players like Mathew Pillans, Jonathan Vandiar, Daniel Sincuba, Craig Kirsten and Aya Myoli, while their CEO, Pete de Wet, confirmed this week that he will be leaving his post at the end of July to become the chief executive of Central Districts in New Zealand.

“They can knock down Kingsmead stadium and move us all to Chatsworth and I won’t mind. I expect more challenges in the role and we will turn them into positives. A lot of people will look at us and say we’re in trouble, maybe underestimate us, and we can trade on that. There are some gems in KZN cricket that people don’t even know about,” Morgan told Saturday Citizen on Friday.

While the 44-year-old is not the high-profile, internationally-experienced coach some Dolphins fans were hoping for – it’s not as if the franchise has billions of rand to attract that sort of figure – Morgan fits the bill as a well-travelled and successful coach.

“The first challenge I had to get over was people always saying I haven’t coached at that level. But I’ve been involved with 19 different teams and encountered a lot of cultures and circumstances, at four different unions, some universities, IPL teams and overseas clubs.

“And there are a couple of lurkers in this Dolphins squad that most people in South Africa don’t know about, guys I really feel can make a jump up, they can jump out of the pack. Some are already good enough for the next level, I just need to build their self-belief. I tell them all that when they come back to Kingsmead for a 10-year reunion, I want them to say these were the greatest days of their lives,” Morgan said.

The winner of four domestic trophies with the KZN Inland side wants his players to be lion-hearted and brave in their cricket.

“We want to play positive and attractive cricket, although you always want the bragging rights of being able to win. But we need an aggressive brand that will turn people back to Kingsmead, we need to show that we are enjoying what we do. I’ll encourage them to take the risk, but be humble players.

“I also don’t want to isolate the amateur guys, I’ll be working with the semi-professional team coaches Shane Burger and Roger Telemachus. Those players must see that I am there for them too, I want to draw the net wider and develop them too, make them believe that they can step up as well,” Morgan said.

The bad news for the Unlimited Titans after their three-wicket loss to the Dolphins at the weekend is that it has almost certainly knocked them out of contention for the Sunfoil Series title; the good news is that coach Rob Walter is nevertheless proud of their performance and believes they are steadily improving in four-day cricket.