Ken Borland

Kathu (Northern Cape) – There were nearly 35 excited children from the Kuruman chapter of the South African Golf Development Board at the Sishen Golf Club driving range on Thursday, taking part in the Vodacom Origins of Golf development clinic and receiving coaching on the basics of the game from Sunshine Tour professionals, but one little guy stood out because he has been teeing it up around the country in junior golf with some success.

Delrico Agterdam is just 10 years old but he already plays off a seven and he is ranked the number two junior in the Northern Cape. For the last two years, he has received his provincial colours for the U13 team.

Considering how much younger he is than his fellow competitors, it is tantalising to think how good Agterdam will be once he fills out a bit.

Annemarie Rabie is the SAGDB coach for the Kuruman area and she was at Sishen Golf Club on Thursday. She says there is little else Agterdam is interested in other than golf.

“Delrico thinks about golf all the time. He eats and sleeps for the game and he really wants to become a professional golfer when he is big. He started playing when he was really small and he puts in a lot of work. The great thing about him is that I can give him a lesson today and tomorrow he will be practising that exact thing and remembering what I taught him,” Rabie says.

Agterdam’s father works at Kuruman Country Club and Rabie first saw him there, just playing around with a club and a ball. The talent was obvious.

Giving disadvantaged golfers the opportunity and exposure to express and fulfil that talent is what the Vodacom Origins of Golf development clinics are all about. But while Agterdam will be aiming to write his name in the annals of the game, the clinics also help engender a love for golf amongst all the other kids. Vodacom wants them to know that there is a place for them in this great game, whether that be as a player, fan, coach or administrator.

“These clinics are really excellent and it was so amazing to see how much the kids enjoyed it. They were like little sponges and they all had a million stories to tell on the 45km drive back to Kuruman. It’s just amazing what Vodacom do, if there weren’t these clinics then these kids would never have been coached by Sunshine Tour pros, or have met them or have played on a course like Sishen Golf Club.

“And when we got to Kuruman Country Club, Delrico climbed out of the car and said he wanted to go and play a few holes, he was so inspired!” Rabie laughed.

CENTURION, Gauteng – South Africa’s Sunshine Ladies Tour professionals are eager to grab the silverware after the overseas contingent’s conquest of the opening two tournaments this season, when the third event, the Fidelity ADT Ladies Challenge, gets underway at Blue Valley Golf Estate from Wednesday.

Scotland’s Kylie Henry opened the season with victory in the Dimension Data Ladies Pro-Am at Fancourt, and India’s Tvesa Malik then triumphed at the SuperSport Ladies Challenge presented by Sun International at the Lost City.

Lejan Lewthwaite will lead the local challenge as the highest-ranked South African in the order of merit playing in the R250 000 tournament, currently in 16^th position.

“It’s only a matter of time, I believe, before we have a South African winner this season. There are a lot of really good local golfers and this is only the third event, so we are still getting into the season,” Lewthwaite said.

“I’m definitely confident in the talent we have and any one of us can win this week. But there are a lot of European golfers over in South Africa at the moment, a lot of the top players in the order of merit will be playing, so it is still a very strong field. We will have to keep our games on point.”

Both Henry, who leads the order of merit, and Malik will be teeing it up on the Gary Player design, while Romy Meekers, Lauren Taylor, Ana Dawson and Helen Kreuzer are all in the top-10 of the standings and have entered this week.

Lewthwaite finished 20^th at both Fancourt and Lost City and her autopsy of her performance so far makes her feel that a strong performance is around the corner.

“I’m hitting the ball quite well but things have just not gone my way yet. That can be the difference between finishing 20^th or top-10 and even contending, you need things to fall your way.

“But the game is there and I just need to build some momentum and I’ll be on my way. I enjoy Blue Valley, it’s a very nice course and should be in good condition. It’s pretty open off the tees and I just want to play to my own strengths, which is a sharp short game. I read the greens well so I’ll be pretty confident around Blue Valley,” Lewthwaite said.

SOUTHBROOM, KwaZulu-Natal – One of the premises of playing in a pro-am event for the professionals is that it allows them an early look at the course and the conditions before their proper tournament, and Hennie O’Kennedy certainly made full use of the opportunity to play in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series San Lameer Pro-Am by winning the competition on Wednesday with amateur partner Tyler Whittaker.

The 26-year-old O’Kennedy says he now knows all about the San Lameer Country Club layout ahead of their Sunshine Tour event there starting on Thursday. And the Stellenbosch Golf Club representative has played it both in the wind on Wednesday and in calmer weather on the first day.

“I expected nothing less than a lot of wind from San Lameer, but it was a beautiful day yesterday,” O’Kennedy said. “I didn’t play last week, so it’s been really nice to come in early here and open up what will be a seven-week stretch for me with a pro-am win.

“Today San Lameer just gave us a taste of what she’s made of and it was really fun. It meant you had to hit a lot of different shots and I enjoyed it. It’s a phenomenal course.

“There’s a lot of water and it’s been called the Blue Monster of South Africa. There’s quite a lot of uphills and downhills as well, so you need to be creative, which makes it more fun.

“If it were flat, it would be simple, but even the greens here, you have to work with the slopes. You really need to stick to your game-plan and really commit to your shots. Fortunately my game-plan seems to be good,” O’Kennedy said cheerfully.

O’Kennedy’s 11^th position on the Luno Order of Merit marks him out as someone to watch as the Sunshine Tour builds towards all the mega-tournaments at the end of the year.

He made an impression at the start of the season with three top-10 finishes, before dropping back into the middle of the field in the middle of the year.

“I made a little change with my putter and I reckon that’s why there was a bit of a dip. But now I’ve changed back to my Moneymaker and hopefully that will help me get back to my best.

“Hopefully this week will put me back on track for the next seven weeks and then the co-sanctioned tournaments that follow,” O’Kennedy said.

His playing partner Whittaker is one of the founders of the Custom Apparel golfwear company that sponsors O’Kennedy and is a partner of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series.

O’Kennedy is a tall, physically-imposing person who stands out in a crowd, but the funky, tropical-themed golf shirts he wore from CA made him even more of a landmark.

“I never expected this, but we dovetailed amazingly well. We play at San Lameer now and then on golf tour, and it is amazing, a really tight set-up.

“The wind was way harder today, but we made it work for ourselves and just played the right shot at the right time,” Whittaker, who hails from Durban and plays off a 5.4 handicap, said.

“I could not have asked for a better partner than Tyler,” O’Kennedy said. “It was  nice to meet him because he has really helped me out with clothing, and he’s a solid golfer and you could not ask for a better person.”

SOUTHBROOM, KwaZulu-Natal – For Vodacom’s Eleni Kwinana, the Executive Head of Department for Vodacom Business Marketing KZN, the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series is a wonderful chance for their amateur clients to connect with Sunshine Tour professionals, but what thrilled her the most on the pro-am’s opening day at San Lameer Country Club on Tuesday was the development clinic.

Around 20 kids from disadvantaged areas on the KZN South Coast attended the development clinic, and Kwinana was delighted to see some of the same boys and girls who had attended the corresponding event at Selborne Park Golf Club in 2020.

“To give young kids from areas where they would never be exposed to golf the chance to get some coaching is very heartwarming, and I even recognised some of the boys and girls from two years ago at Selborne. They have sprung up, and it was brilliant to see them again,” Kwinana said.

“Youth education is one of our key pillars at Vodacom and helping communities has almost become a way of life for us, we don’t see CSI programmes as being something separate from our day-to-day work.

“Where we see a need, we help or we find someone who can help. Like our zero-rated Vodacom e-School which allows pupils to access their curriculum and test themselves. My own daughter went from a D aggregate to an A for maths, and it doesn’t cost a cent if you’re a Vodacom customer.

“There’s also our Code Like a Girl programme, where we find girls nationally who have never touched a tech device, we teach them during the June holidays, and by the time school starts again they are able to sort out their own website,” Kwinana said.

While Vodacom’s grand plan is to allow people from every district and rural area to also Connect For Good in this digital age, sometimes disaster strikes, whether it be in the form of the civil unrest that plagued KwaZulu-Natal in July 2021 or the massive floods that engulfed the province in April/May this year. And then Vodacom spring into action with a range of emergency relief measures.

“Vodacom is investing R1 billion of infrastructure into KZN, which is the biggest investment in the province. We find working with communities leads to much better longevity and protection of our assets, and so we never ever neglect our communities.

“We are there for their benefit, which is why when the floods came, we donated R3 million worth of relief aid through the Gift of the Givers, but we also went out to communities that had not been assisted yet and brought them blankets and food.

“During the riots we restored cellphone coverage a lot quicker than usual for those suppliers that the economy depends on, we gave them makeshift satellite dishes. We do these things so we can thrive as a province.

“We helped keep suburbs safe and restored businesses’ connectivity so the economy could bounce back as quickly as possible,” Kwinana said.

So helping people from all walks of life is par for the course for Vodacom. And golf has enjoyed their patronage and support for longer than most sports, with the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series running since 2004. It is the longest-running series of events on the Sunshine Tour.

“We really enjoy seeing the professionals and amateurs connect at our tournaments. Especially in this post-Covid time because people have been starved of human contact,” Kwinana said.

But with Vodacom involved so massively in the entire golf ecosystem , that human touch will always be around.