Ken Borland

DULLSTROOM (Mpumalanga) – There are many conflicting attractions for youngsters today, and when one comes from a struggling little town like Pilgrim’s Rest, then too often those distractions are of the disagreeable variety.

Which is why the work of the South African Golf Development Board (SAGDB), supported by Vodacom, is so important in introducing kids in disadvantaged areas to the great game of golf.

Vodacom’s Origins of Golf Series kicked off its new season this week at Highland Gate Golf and Trout Estate and, as a regular part of the pro-ams they stage at every event, they also hold a development clinic for beneficiaries of the SAGDB.

Twenty-two youngsters between the ages of eight and 17, smartly attired in their red Vodacom shirts, took to the driving range at Highland Gate on Thursday to receive some coaching from Sunshine Tour professionals, kindly giving of their time the day before their tournament starts.

Many of the children come from Pilgrim’s Rest Primary School and are fortunate enough that their teacher in charge, Joyce Mabuye, is passionate about sport.

“I love sport, having played netball, volleyball and soccer, and I love seeing these children do it as well. To take them out of their location and allow them to see nature as beautiful as this – for some of them it is the first time – is wonderful. This is like a dream come true for them, because they have never been to a place like this before, they mostly don’t see things like this.

“This motivates them to do something good. I am constantly fighting for children to do something in sports because it keeps them away from drugs, the taverns or the ZamaZamas [illegal miners]. We have a lot of them in our mining town and sometimes the kids quit school to join them. So their parents are very supportive of them playing golf,” Mabuye says.

The Mashego brothers, Jastice and Austin, are both busy trying to further their own professional golf careers, but nevertheless they sacrifice practice time to give back to youngsters growing up where they did.

Jastice, who plays on the Sunshine Tour and is in the field for the main Vodacom Origins of Golf event teeing off on Friday, and Austin, who has fallen just a couple of shots short of getting a card in the last two Vusi Ngubeni Tournaments, coach the boys a couple of times every week.

“Our father, Obed, was a keen golfer and a member at Pilgrim’s Rest Golf Club, so we took up the game. I’ll be caddying for Jastice this week, which helps me find out how the pros do it and why they do certain things,” Austin, who won the Middleburg Open in 2015 when he was just 15 years old, says.

“I love assisting Jastice with the coaching. Being out here hitting balls helps to clear the minds of these youngsters.”

For Jastice, it is about providing an opportunity to dream.

“Coming from a small town like Pilgrim’s Rest, there is not much opportunity for these kids and they don’t have role-models. So now we can let them see what golf is all about. I hope to inspire them, to give them hope. Just travelling here will open their minds a bit,” Jastice says.

Monde Ngcukana, the managing executive for Vodacom Business’s Mpumalanga region, was an appreciative onlooker at the coaching clinic, before enthusiastically hitting a few balls himself.

“It’s very important that these children are stimulated and given the chance to be active. This exclusive venue gives them something to aspire to, but making golf instruction more accessible for them is also a big plus. Vodacom wants to support the youth however we can, with a focus on education, which is why our data is zero-rated for those in Grade R to Grade 12.

“These clinics are part of an holistic approach to the growth of children in South Africa. With our Mum-and-Baby programme, we really do support children from the cradle. And it’s good to see so much red here,” Ngcukana beamed.

One of the joys of the SA20 is that there are different types of pitches that are used in the tournament and teams are often forced to think on their feet and adapt at short notice. The Pretoria Capitals were quicker and better in adapting to the SuperSport Park wicket on Thursday night and duly notched their first win of the season, beating the Durban Super Giants by 17 runs.

When returning captain Wayne Parnell won the toss and elected to bat first, eyebrows were raised because Centurion is traditionally a venue full of runs, where defending any sort of total can be tough at altitude on a pitch full of runs and a smallish, very quick outfield.

But this pitch behaved slightly differently. The best time to bat was up front and batting second was just that little bit harder as the ball gripped on a dry surface once the new-ball shine had gone.

Will Jacks was the man who seized the moment as he plundered the fastest century in SA20 history, needing just 41 balls to get there, and his onslaught up front gave the Pretoria Capitals such a good platform that their deceleration in the second half of their innings and a collapse of five wickets for seven runs at the death did not cost them the match.

A total of 204 for nine was certainly competitive and the Durban Super Giants were unable to replicate Jacks’ aggression up front and finished on 187 for seven.

Junior Dala, the Durban Super Giants strike bowler but usually based at SuperSport Park, said “It was a game that was probably won and lost in the powerplays. We showed fight with both bat and ball at the end, but we probably conceded 15 to 20 runs too many in our bowling powerplay as Will came hard at us.”

With Jacks hammering eight fours and nine sixes, including a straight hit into the media centre that I have never seen before at SuperSport Park, and fellow Englishman Phil Salt also scoring freely with 23 off 13 balls, the Capitals were off to a blazing start.

The opening pair lashed 75 runs off the first five-and-a-half overs, but then crucially, the Super Giants began taking wickets. As the ball became older, so the cutters came out and the visitors kept chipping away at the Pretoria batting line-up.

“With the newer ball, your cutters and slower balls just skidded on more, but by the eighth or ninth over they were beginning to grip more. But you still had to be smart and understand your match-ups,” Dala later explained.

Jacks reached his hundred two balls quicker than Durban’s Heinrich Klaasen had done in his landmark effort in this same fixture last season, the ball whizzing off his bat in a sparkling innings that should attract many, many views on SA20’s various digital platforms.

But when Jacks (101 off 42 balls) cut his next ball after reaching his second T20 century straight to point, Dwaine Pretorius making the breakthrough, the Pretoria Capitals innings rather lost its fizz. The wicket left them 151 for four after 13 overs, and although Colin Ingram scored a busy 43 off 23 deliveries, their momentum petered out.

Marcus Stoinis (4-0-37-1), playing his first SA20 match having just arrived from the Big Bash in Australia, lit the fuse for the bowling comeback as he dismissed Jimmy Neesham and conceded just two runs in the 18^th over; Reece Topley (4-1-34-3) then bowled an astonishing double-wicket maiden and Dala (4-0-32-2) also took two wickets in the final over while conceding just seven runs.

Jacks then toyed with the Super Giants with the ball as well. He opened the bowling and conceded just seven runs in the first over, before returning and claiming two wickets – Kyle Mayers bowled for 1 and the massive scalp of Klaasen for just a single. The off-spinner finished with two for 18 in his three overs.

Opener Matthew Breetzke ought to have batted deeper after scoring 33 off 24 balls but he steered Parnell straight to deep cover and the Capitals just kept chipping away with regular wickets.

Quinton de Kock made 25 off 20 before he sent a mistimed pull off Hardus Viljoen straight to deep midwicket, Stoinis hit a couple of big sixes before holing out to Neesham, and Jacks then took a boundary catch to dismiss Keemo Paul (18) off Parnell.

Jon-Jon Smuts scored a defiant 27, but not even a late flurry from Pretorius (19* off 10) and Keshav Maharaj (25* off 12) was enough to take the Super Giants to a win.

Eathan Bosch was the other Pretoria bowler to excel, showing what a top-class talent he is as he adapted beautifully to the pitch, bowling effective cutters and conceding just 18 runs in his three overs.

The third round of a golf tournament – colloquially known as ‘Moving Day’ – is often about building a healthy lead heading into the final round, but for Max Homa, Saturday at the Gary Player Country Club was all about consolidation and the world number eight has fought off numerous challengers to end the penultimate day of the Nedbank Golf Challenge with a one-stroke lead.

Beginning the third round tied for the lead with Matthieu Pavon, Homa dropped just one stroke on Saturday and that was the key to his pre-eminent position heading into the final round. What he described as a “squirrelly” start saw the American bogey the par-three fourth hole, but he immediately birdied the fifth to cut Pavon’s lead back to one shot.

The key moment of the day came on the par-five 10^th as Homa holed his bunker shot for eagle. Another birdie for the 32-year-old on the next par-five, the 14^th, ensured he would lead alone after Pavon dropped shots on 15 and 16.

Homa posted a three-under-par 69 on Saturday to finish on 13-under overall, with Pavon’s 70 leaving him on 12-under. Nicolai Hojgaard’s 69, containing three bogeys as well as six birdies, lifted him to 11-under-par with Thorbjorn Olesen, whose only bogey came on the 16^th, as he also shot 69.

“I didn’t swing so well to start, it was all a bit scrappy, but I hit the ball really well for the last 10 holes, I just didn’t sink anything,” Homa said after his round. “It felt like I was hitting good shots but not capitalising, things weren’t going my way before that nice bunker shot on 10, that was a lovely boost.

“I gave myself a lot of looks today and the plan tomorrow is to make a few more putts. It’s a dream and an honour just to have the opportunity to win this tournament, which has a tremendous history. Every day we walk past the winners’ plaques at the ninth green, it’s an impressive list and I would love to add my name to that legacy. All I can do is put myself in the best position to do that,” Homa said.

Pavon was okay with his position after a boiling hot, gruelling day at Sun City, nestled like a kiln between the Pilanesberg mountains. Before his late bogeys on the 15^th and 16^th holes, the Frenchman had been four-under for his round, not bad going in the testing conditions with the wind also having picked up.

“It was nice to start well with three birdies in the first seven holes, but overall it was a real grind today. It was hard, the pins are in tricky places and it was all about managing your game. It was also a very long day – five-and-a-half hours, which is too long in that heat and intensity, you drain a lot of energy.

“It was good to walk away with two pars, that was a very solid finish. It’s always nice having won a few weeks ago [the Spanish Open on October 15], so my confidence is pretty high and my game feels good,” Pavon said.

The chances of a South African winner, for the first time since Branden Grace in 2017, seem to be drying up with Hennie du Plessis still the leading local, but on five-under, eight shots off the lead. Three birdies in the first five holes on Saturday were considerable hops up the leaderboard, but he then slumped back with five bogeys leaving him with a 74.

Dan Bradbury, whose rapid rise from nowhere to prominence is one of the stories of the season, had a day of astronomical ups and downs, a bogey at the last leaving him on 10-under-par in fifth place.

On the 195m, par-three foirth, he was inches away from claiming a hole-in-one, but he followed up that birdie with another one on the fifth. The Joburg Open winner went out in two-under 34 after a bogey on the par-four eighth and a birdie on the par-five ninth.

The back nine was an epic rollercoaster for the Englishman. He left his birdie putt on the par-five 11^th just short and then bogeyed the par-three 12^th. He missed another birdie opportunity on the par-fibe 14^th with a terrible close-range miss, but them made a marvellous 25ft putt for par on 15, followed by a massive 34-footer for birdie on the 16^th.

Like many others, he then found himself in trouble on the 18^th, the toughest hole in the third round, when he missed the green right and chipped out of the rough, 17 feet past the flag, failing to make the par-putt.

Wiaan Mulder says he was almost at the point of saying goodbye to the game before a stellar season of county cricket with Leicestershire reignited his love for the sport, and now he is eager just to get out on to the field as often as possible for the Central Gauteng Lions and the Durban Super Giants.

In and out of the national squad, and more often than not touring without getting regular game-time, Mulder says his focus is no longer on proving anything to the national selectors. The 24-year-old is considered one of South Africa’s brightest all-round talents, and was first picked for the Proteas five years ago. Former national coach Ottis Gibson was much enamoured by his skills, but Mulder was arguably thrown into the deep end too soon, and his talent was almost wasted.

“I’ve travelled a lot with the Proteas without really playing, whether in red-ball or white-ball cricket,” Mulder told The Citizen. “I just never had a full run, it’s difficult playing a Test or an ODI here or there.

“At international level, you’re always competing against very good players and sometimes you don’t get as many chances as you want. You have to take what comes and you don’t play for two months and then you’re playing for your life.

“I hadn’t been enjoying my cricket for a long time, and signing with Leicestershire, my goal was to find my love for the game again, it was a great opportunity, with the freedom to just be myself.

“I almost called it quits on my career, but I’ve come a long way since then and I really want to thank Leicestershire for the belief they showed in me, which pushed me through. I think my happiness showed in my performances,” Mulder said.

The St Stithians product was named Leicestershire’s players’ player of the year and was also the fans’ favourite after a brilliant season with both bat and ball in all formats.

Durban Super Giants also gave his ability in the shortest format a big vote of confidence when they bought him for R1.9 million in the SA20 Auction.

Mulder will return to action next week as part of a strong Lions outfit in the CSA T20 Challenge, and he says the ball is coming nicely out of the hand and he is hitting it sweet with the bat as well.

“I’m quite confident, I had a really nice run with Leicestershire in the T20s and in the Lions’ warm-ups, I executed my skills well. But form is temporary, we know how it works in cricket, you never know how it’s going to go.

“But I’m trying to shift my mindset away from worrying about form and just trying to give as much as I can to whatever team I’m playing for.

“As a batsman, I’m no Kieron Pollard, but I can find a way to score boundaries and have a decent strike-rate. I’ve worked hard on my boundary hitting, for when conditions and the situation are compatible.

“I was batting at five for Leicestershire and the more time I have, the better I play. Often I would go in in the powerplay. I would love to be able to play like Rassie van der Dussen, who is so consistent, he always gives himself a chance, but can also hit his first ball for six if that’s what the team needs,” Mulder said.