Ken Borland

Young Brandon Stone is undoubtedly blessed with a terrific golf game but an equally impressive temperament as he showed on Sunday by blazing his way to a seven-stroke victory in the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek.

The 23-year-old began the day with a three-stroke lead over defending champion Charl Schwartzel, who has won the tournament four times, and showed immense composure as South Africa’s number two ranked golfer drew level with him after six holes.

But Stone stuck to his game-plan of staying conservative on the tougher front nine, turning in one-under-par, before obliterating the field on the back nine as he raced to a five-under-par 67, including five birdies, that left him on 22-under-par for the tournament, the second-best winning score ever.

It was the vastly more experienced Schwartzel who disintegrated, a bogey at the par-five 13^th, when he wasted a superb drive by taking two shots to get out of a greenside bunker, being followed by a disastrous eight at the par-five 15^th and then a double-bogey on the par-three 16^th after more water trouble.

In fact, Stone stared down all his challengers, with Keith Horne and Chris Hanson both fading to 76s for 10-under overall, while Benjamin Hebert could only manage a level-par 72 to finish in a tie for fourth on 12-under and David Drysdale shooting a 73 to finish on 10-under.

Richard Sterne, second on 15-under-par after a 67, and young Belgian Thomas Detry, who finished third in just his fifth European Tour start after a 68, were the chief beneficiaries of the carnage up top the leaderboard.

“It wasn’t stress free but it feels great and it’s massive to have my name alongside those big ones already on the trophy. It’s probably the best I’ve played, my ball-striking was superb from the first to last hole and there wasn’t a hole where I was really in trouble all week. To shoot 22-under around here is not a simple task, it’s quite something,” a delighted Stone said after his second European Tour triumph following his SA Open win at the start of the year.

A pair of birdies on the sixth and seventh holes were key for Stone as they kept him under par on the front nine, even though he bogeyed the eighth, taking a lot of flak for hitting Driver off the deck.

“On the front nine I was tied for the lead at one stage and it was reminiscent of the SA Open. But I knew my game-plan was to be one or two under for the front nine and then try and score on the back nine and I was able to get some momentum going,” Stone said.

Victory was sealed on the 13^th shortly after Schwartzel’s bogey there as Stone narrowly missed his putt for eagle after a superb drive and approach shot to 25 feet, his birdie giving him a five-shot lead.

Stone was just way too hot for the rest of the field on a sweltering 40 degree day in Malelane.

Retief Goosen decided in 2012 that he didn’t care if he never played golf again.

It was a decision based not on any hatred for the game, but on the debilitating back injury that left him in constant pain due to a disintegrating disc in his lower back.

One of South Africa’s finest golfers and a two-time U.S. Open champion, Goosen went under the knife in August 2012, unsure if his stellar career was over.

This week Goosen was holding his own against the best golfers on the European Tour, flirting with the top-20, in the prestigious Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City, the penultimate event for the Race to Dubai order of merit. It is the first time he has played Africa’s Major since 2010, having won the event in 2004, and it is thanks to a sponsor’s invitation.

“Obviously it’s a great feeling to be back here, especially as a past champion, Sun City is one of my favourite golf courses in the world and they’ve taken this tournament to a different level.

“It’s an added bonus just to be here because I’m nowhere in the rankings, and when I got the call it was a big ‘Yes!’. Hopefully I can find some form, you never know, when you come back to somewhere you like, you tend to find some form.

“My health is very good though, the back is as good as it’s ever been. I wish I’d had the surgery much earlier. Having no pain is a major plus and everything about the back is better since the operation. I’m able to sleep again without any pain. At one stage I didn’t care if I never played golf again as long as I could get rid of the pain, I would have done anything to stop the constant pain,” Goosen said this week.

”It was impossible to go through 18 holes without getting spasms in the back and struggling to hit some shots on certain lies. At that stage, I pretty much felt like my career was over.”

Even though the titanium disc inserted in his back – he was the first professional golfer to undergo the procedure – has made him feel 10 years younger, Goosen says golf is now more of a pastime than a career for him.

“I’ve made my living so now I’m going to try and live life. Spend more time with Tracy and the kids (Leo and Ella), enjoy the things that I had to pass on before. Golf is definitely not the number one priority in my life anymore. My 48^th birthday is coming up in February and, although it was initially not easy cutting back, I’m now enjoying the few tournaments I do play, I’m not fighting myself so much.

“I’ve cut back my schedule, I’m definitely not playing 30 events a year. This year I’ll only play 16-18 tournaments and something similar next year. In a couple of years I’ll qualify for the Senior Tour and then who knows?” Goosen said.

The Polokwane product also owns a wine farm and a course-design business, as well as running a charitable foundation.

His wine estate, Ganzekraal, is the only wine farm in the Upper Langkloof district, located high in the Outeniqua mountain range, and is currently regarded as the coldest wine farm in the country. It is close to the coast and the cold sea breezes blow over the mountains and through the vineyards. The cold climate gives the grapes and his range of Goose wines unique characteristics.

The laconic Goosen is famous for his unflappable demeanour and, during his prime as one of the best golfers in the world in the early 2000s, he was much admired for the way he treated those twin imposters of success and failure with the same equanimity.

He has not won on the European Tour since 2007 and is winless in America since 2009, his world ranking having dropped to 189.

But Goosen remains a much-respected and admired golfer and his place in the record books as one of South Africa’s greatest is secure. He remains a drawcard and golf would be the poorer without him.

http://citizen.co.za/sport/sport-golf/1343430/goose-spreading-his-wings/

The announcement of South Africa’s team for the golf component of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro is now a month away and the lack of major interest is palpable for a sport that should give the country a chance of a precious medal.

The legendary Gary Player is the captain of South Africa’s team but the two-man outfit will be chosen purely on the basis of the world rankings on July 11. Because Branden Grace is the only available South African in the top-15, we will only be able to send two players.

The great pity is that Louis Oosthuizen, currently 14^th, has withdrawn from Olympic contention, so the prospect of sending a third player in Charl Schwartzel and maybe even a fourth in Jaco van Zyl, falls away. Only countries with more than two players in the top-15 are allowed to send bigger teams.

Schwartzel has also made himself unavailable, joining the Australian Adam Scott in snubbing the Olympics.

Golf was always going to be a tough fit for an event based on such classical ideals as amateurism. Today’s top golfers care mostly about the paycheque and winning Majors, that’s what really counts for them.

But instead of harping on about why the sport shouldn’t be at the Olympic Games, here are a couple of suggestions that could make a gold medal more attractive to golfers.

Firstly, it’s going to take time.

Tennis only returned to the Olympics in 1988 and initially there seemed to be similar problems to what golf is experiencing. But now Novak Djokovic is going all out to win that gold medal and a small thing like the Zika Virus is not going to keep him away.

Roger Federer is going to play singles, doubles and mixed doubles for Switzerland, while Rafael Nadal has been given the honour of carrying Spain’s flag into the Maracana Stadium.

Secondly, to make it more enticing for golfers, why not make it into a team competition, rather than an individual strokeplay? We’ve seen what the Ryder Cup does to them, it’s one of the highlights of any European or American golfer’s career.

How about bringing an amateur component into the competition, teaming a country’s top two amateurs with their top two pros?

Or what about making the golf a mixed team competition?

One gets the feeling that the Olympic Games might be struggling to remain as one of the most important sporting events, hence their decision to extend invitations to global sports like golf and rugby, but they have to get the format right if these events are going to add to the spectacle and not detract from it.

Golf tournaments are probably second only to weddings when it comes to people questioning whether all the expense is justified, but the City of Tshwane on Tuesday revealed some impressive figures in terms of the return on investment in the Tshwane Open, which was being launched at Pretoria Country Club.

This year’s event will be held from February 11-14 and will be the first of at least two more stagings of the co-sanctioned event in Tshwane, with the city council having renewed their contract and the prizemoney being increased to R18.5 million.

Lee-Anne Bac, a researcher at Grant Thornton who was hired by the City of Tshwane to measure the impact of staging the tournament, said the benefit to the economy over the last two years has been around R140 million, with R39 million direct spend in Tshwane, while Repucom, the sports marketing and sponsorships experts, say the exposure the Tshwane Open received last year was worth more than $8 million.

As Selwyn Nathan, the executive director of the Sunshine Tour, pointed out: “Tshwane haven’t had to pay millions for their name change from Pretoria, like Datsun did when they changed to Nissan, because in the four years of this tournament, hundreds of people every day are asking ‘Where is Tshwane?’ and googling it.”

“The Tshwane Open has exposed our brand to 230 million households around the globe, which can only help grow our economy. People ask why we don’t just spend R30 million on supplying basic services, but the more enduring solution to our socio-economic problems is to grow the economy. Just dishing out social grants won’t work and we need to free people from relying on the state to make them succeed,” Kgosientso Ramokgopa, the executive mayor of the city, said at Tuesday’s launch.

George Coetzee will be back to defend his title on the course he grew up on, while Charl Schwartzel will make a welcome return to action having missed the SA and Joburg Opens due to a virulent stomach virus.

But the new guard of South African golf is making its presence felt and Brandon Stone, Haydn Porteous, Zander Lombard and Christiaan Bezuidenhout will all be teeing it up at Pretoria Country Club.

“I would like to see George win again because he’s been a great ambassador for us, but Zander and Christiaan were runners-up in the two previous co-sanctioned events and Brandon, Charl and Haydn have already been winners this year. If someone new wins, then it provides great opportunity for them with a two-year exemption on the European Tour. It’s a stepping stone to competing internationally and making a name for themselves,” Nathan said.