Ken Borland

DURBAN, KwaZulu-Natal – Aged 40, Peter Karmis is certainly not old, but in many ways he is older and wiser now when it comes to his chosen career and passion, professional golf.

The fact that he has won before at Mount Edgecombe and finished second in his previous Vodacom Origins of Golf appearance in Sishen at the end of August, plus the knowledge that he has been working hard on his game (he was on the putting green until the sun set on Tuesday), suggest Karmis will be a strong contender for this week’s event on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast.

But Karmis is experienced enough to know that some days are your day and others just are not.

“Sometimes you just wake up and you know you’re going to play well. If you have not done enough work in the lead-up to an event you know you’re not going to win, but there are also times when you are fully prepared but you have to be content with making the cut. Just being in the mix requires a different mental state, guys talk about that mental side of knowing when to execute, even though your hands are sweating and your heart is racing. But I enjoy it, that’s what we play for, and that’s when your mechanics need to perform under pressure, which is why it comes back to hard work,” Karmis said.

“At Sishen, my mechanics were so-so to be honest, but my game is getting better again. I just needed that one good shot that would have made the difference. But it was good to feel the competitive juices flowing again.”

Professional golf is such a tough battlefield and as a career it requires much sacrifice, but Karmis has a stunning grasp of the balance required between golf being his job and the fact that, at the end of the day, he is still playing a game that one is meant to enjoy.

“A lot of a professional’s life is lonely because you leave your family behind. I know when I was in Japan earlier this year, my happiest day ever was when my family came to Japan, but the worst day ever was when they left.

“As a golf pro, you have to get used to not having your own bed, your own stuff around you, there are things like different food, driving on the other side of the road, and the different cultures you come across. Sometimes in Japan you get a caddie who can’t speak English.

“Some people just can’t handle all those changes, but I just love playing golf, even just nine holes or a pro-am. And Keenan Davidse and Christiaan Basson and myself actually drove together to Sishen, we had a road trip together and that was fun,” Karmis said.

Sishen is the Northern Cape mining town close to Kuruman and 284km north-west of Kimberley. If one carries on down the N14 towards the Atlantic, after another 422km one comes to the famous town of Pofadder and then, another 57km to the West, one reaches Aggeneys, where Karmis was born.

Apart from the mine that digs up the rich deposits of copper, lead and zinc, the golf course is Aggeneys’s only other real attraction. It is where Karmis first picked up a club, “messing around” with his father, a “really keen golfer”. The family then moved to Cape Town when he was seven.

Aggeneys is an oasis in some of the most arid, unforgiving territory in South Africa, but also some of the most geologically rich land in the country. It is not hard to think of it as a metaphor for Karmis’s approach to professional golf – it can be an unforgiving landscape, but Karmis is able to dig deep and find the things of value that keep him going.

The winner of the Sun Sibaya Challenge at Mount Edgecombe in October 2016, Karmis is back for the 54-hole Vodacom Origins of Golf Series event on The Woods course starting on Thursday and says he loves playing in KwaZulu-Natal.

One of the reasons is what many other people complain about – the humidity.

But that’s Karmis for you – forever turning negatives into positives.

There are numerous South African golfers competing and excelling overseas, especially in Europe, these days.

And while the winning performances of the likes of Garrick Higgo and Dean Burmester on the European Tour, and Branden Grace, Higgo and Erik van Rooyen on the U.S. PGA Tour understandably hog the limelight, there are many other golfers just trying to make a living on those big tours. South Africa have seven full-time golfers on the main tour in the United States, four of which also regularly play in Europe, alongside 16 other South Africans.

Less well-known is the fact that there are six South African women’s golfers in the top 100 on the Ladies European Tour. And when one compares the prizemoney they win to their compatriots on the men’s tours, the massive pay disparities when it comes to gender become apparent.

Darren Fichardt is 99^th on the European Tour order of merit and has won more than 170 000 euro n seven tournaments this year; Stacy Bregman is 100^th on the Ladies European Tor standings and has won just over 52 500 euro in 11 events.

Even at the top end of the rankings, the story is the same. Justin Harding is 20^th in the Race to Dubai and has earned more than 610 000 euro in 19 starts; Ashleigh Buhai is 21^st on the LET and has won just 93 254 euro.

The majority of South African golfers overseas are not winning titles, they are just trying to accumulate enough money week-by-week to keep playing over there and hopefully get the breakthrough win that secures their card. That challenge is especially hard for the women: On the men’s European Tour this year there is not a single tournament that has a prize pool of less than a million euro; only nine out of 26 LET events reach that benchmark.

The two women’s majors played in Europe – the second of which, the AIG Women’s Open, is being held this weekend at Carnoustie – have a prize fund of 3.8 million euro, which would rank 12^th highest on the men’s tour.

“Playing golf overseas is an expensive sport, especially doing it week-to-week, there are huge overheads if you don’t have help. If it weren’t for my sponsor Investec, I would definitely not be able to represent the country in Europe and maybe inspire the younger generation that it is possible. And you have to go overseas to play better golf, playing against the best in the world can only improve your game.

“In the future, hopefully more youngsters from South Africa can make a good living from golf. It’s a tough sport and a lot of girls are intimidated to play it. We want to make it a sport for everyone and to show that we definitely need to get more women watching us play. But to do that we need more media exposure, it has to be in your face for people to notice,” Bregman told The Citizen.

Of course, the argument that the men enjoy such large paydays because they attract greater viewership and more sponsorship will be made. But part of the reason for their bigger viewership figures is that the men’s game enjoys greater promotion, while not as much effort is made to explain just how skilful women’s golfers are, not relying so much on power games.

For instance, research has shown that women golfers are more accurate from 120 yards in, but those are the sort of in-depth stats that coverage of their sport does not employ to the same extent as the men.

“Our only hope of seeing the gap in prizemoney close is for people to see how good our product is. We should actually be paid the same because we are playing the same courses. We might not have the same power, and somehow that does not seem to have the same pull when it comes to viewership, but we just don’t play golf the same way the top men do.

“It’s about creating awareness for potential sponsors and I definitely think the skill factor should be highlighted. The average golfer plays a totally different game to the men’s pros, but I think the better men’s amateur golfers can relate more to the women’s game. I think our game does have more skill and the more men that watch us play will hopefully lead to things changing,” Bregman says.

But analyses suggest that even if women are at the forefront of public attention and viewership figures, they still end up learning less. According to the Wall Street Journal, in the three years after winning the 2015 World Cup, the U.S. women’s soccer team generated more revenue than the men’s team. But their earnings did not rise, leading to a landmark lawsuit that tackled the gender pay gap. A judge ruled, however, that because the women’s team had previously negotiated a pay deal that was weighted more towards fixed income than perfomrance bonuses, they could only sue for equal working conditions and they came to a settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation.

Locally, Investec have been at the forefront of efforts to create more transparency around prizemoney in golf and have been pushing for sponsors to support women’s golf so that the sport can follow tennis and athletics in ensuring that there is no major gap in earnings between the top male and female stars.

No spectators are going to be allowed at Randpark Golf Club when the prestigious Joburg Open is held there from November 19-22, but there will be plenty of entertainment for golf fans at the club both before and after that with the installation of the new InRange ball-tracking facility at their driving range.

InRange is a system designed by engineers in Stellenbosch who were global leaders in the field of tracking technology for radio telescopes and radar, who turned their attention to tracking the flight of golf balls. The result is not only a package that is used by leading professionals, golf clubs and coaches, but which also has tremendous entertainment value.

Golfers previously going through the motions on the driving range can now track each and every shot and can play under added pressure in the system’s game mode that allows multiple players to compete against each other in contests such as Longest Drive or Bullseye. With four buckets of balls costing less than R400 for a foursome, this sounds like great fun for a group of golfing mates.

The technology is also available on an app, allowing individuals to enjoy the experience at a cheaper cost.

But for the weekend of November 19-22, Randpark will become a place of national importance and closed to the public as the European Tour and their top international golfers arrive to participate in the Joburg Open. As Randpark GC chief executive Francois Swart explained, they simply cannot risk any Covid transmission occurring, especially with South Africa hosting the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek and then the South African Open at Sun City on the following weekends.

“It’s very important that the safety protocols are adhered to and we have to manage the bubbles and ensure the safety of the players, not just for this tournament but for the next two as well. I think not having spectators is the better call and unfortunately not even our members will be allowed at the club. It’s the right call because it’s a big investment.

“The players are the ones who have the most risk and if any of them get exposed then they’re out for the rest of the tournaments as well. Not having spectators is normal practice at this time on the European Tour and they have had a lot of input because they have staged big tournaments already this year. They’ve given us valuable insights and I have all the confidence in the world that the Joburg Open will go off beautifully,” Swart told The Citizen.

A South African may not have won a Major title since Ernie Els triumphed at the Open in 2012, but any suggestion our golf is going to the dogs has been refuted by the superb displays of our golfers around the world over the weekend.

Between them, South Africa’s four top performing golfers over the weekend – Louis Oosthuizen, Garrick Higgo, Ashleigh Buhai and Els himself – took home nearly R23 million in prizemoney. And that excludes the cash raked in by the top-five finishes of both George Coetzee and Retief Goosen.

The Major event of the weekend was the U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club outside New York and the powerful Bryson de Chambeau unleashed his dogs of war in the final round, in which he was the only golfer to shoot under-par, to win by a massive six strokes.

Oosthuizen, who was four off the pace at the start of the round, was soon out of real contention for the title as De Chambeau began dismembering the course on his way to a 67, and his challenge ran out of steam with a three-over 73 on the final day. Nevertheless it was good enough for the 2010 Open champion to finish alone in third, two behind second-placed Matthew Wolff.

Oosthuizen took home more than R14.2 million for his efforts and he now has six top-three finishes in the Majors, including being runner-up at least once in all of them.

The PGA Tour Champions is a lucrative way for professional golfers who have turned 50 and qualified for the seniors tour to bulk up their medical aid and Els took home more than R2.6 million at the weekend when he finished third in the Pure Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach.

Unfortunately Els, who was the leader going into the final round, suffered another of his putting breakdowns as he missed a two-foot putt for par on the last that would have secured him a place in the playoff with eventual winner Jim Furyk and Jerry Kelly.

Goosen finished in fourth place, two shots adrift of Els.

Buhai (nee’ Simon) did get into a playoff in her event on the LPGA Tour, shooting a brilliant seven-under-par 65 in the final round to join Major winner Georgia Hall in the showdown for the Cambria Portland Classic title at Columbia Edgewater.

Unfortunately, Buhai’s putter, which had come to her aid numerous times earlier in the day, let her down on the second extra hole as she missed a par putt to deny her her maiden LPGA title.

The good news though for the three-time SA Open winner is that she has earned herself a place in the U.S. Open in December and she won nearly R2.7 million.

There was at least one South African winner at the weekend though and that was young rising star Garrick Higgo, who claimed his maiden European Tour title by winning the Portugal Open at Royal Obidos. In just his seventh start on the tour, a marvellous seven-under-par 65 drove the 21-year-old left-hander to the victory, Higgo beating Spaniard Pep Angles by one stroke.

Higgo was superb with the Driver all weekend, and he did not make a bogey in his last 26 holes, dropping just three shots all tournament.

While Higgo took home a little more than R3 million for his life-changing win, Coetzee continued to capitalise on his fine form by finishing in a tie for third, four shots back.