Ken Borland

Christiaan Bezuidenhout was named on Tuesday as the only South African in compatriot Trevor Immelman’s team for the Presidents Cup, and the 28-year-old debutant believes he has a game tailormade for the tough Quail Hollow layout on which they will take on the United States from September 22-25.

Bezuidenhout joins K.H. Lee, Sebastian Munoz, Taylor Pendrith, Si Woo Kim and Cameron Davis as a captain’s pick for the International Team on a dangerous course, especially down the stretch. Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im, Tom Kim, Corey Connors, Mito Pereira and Adam Scott were automatic qualifiers.

Bezuidenhout has won three times on the European Tour and finished 51^st on his just-completed first full year on the U.S. PGA Tour. That will be crucial experience.

“Most golf courses in the States are a lot longer than what we usually play and it’s a completely different style of golf to what we’re used to in Europe and internationally,” Bezuidenhout said on Tuesday. “They are set up tougher, they are narrower, with higher rough. So you need a good scrambling game and I feel I am a really good putter, one of the best on tour [ranked sixth last season].

“Off the tee I’m pretty straight, I hit a lot of fairways and my scramble around the greens is pretty good.

“We had a two-day training camp in Charlotte and practised a bit on Quail Hollow. It was the first time I’d seen it, but it was a lovely couple of days,” Bezuidenhout said.

While some international golfers may have been torn between playing in the Presidents Cup or defecting to LIV Golf – and Immelman lost the services of ‘rebels’ like Cameron Smith, Louis Oosthuizen, Branden Grace and Abraham Ancer – Bezuidenhout has had his sights set on the tournament for a while. He will be one of the golfers Immelman described as being really hungry to beat the Americans.

“It’s a massive honour for me to be selected because the Presidents Cup has been a definite goal for me for quite a few years,” Bezuidenhout said. “The International team was so close to victory in Melbourne in 2019, which was really exciting.

“I played really hard to make the team three years ago, but just missed out. Now I can look back at all the other South Africans who have played in the past, and it’s a big honour for me to make my debut.

“My first memory of the tournament was in 2003 when I was nine years old and I remember Ernie Els and Tiger Woods in the playoff. I always watch it on TV, I’ve followed the event closely.

“We are definite underdogs, but there is a great vibe in the team, it’s a great bunch of guys and everyone is so supportive. The team spirit is high and everyone’s excited,” Bezuidenhout said.

South African golfers who participate in the ‘rebel’ Saudi Arabian league will still be welcome to play on the Sunshine Tour, as things stand at the moment, but come the showpiece Nedbank Golf Challenge at the end of the year, they could find themselves out in the cold.

LIV Golf, with Greg Norman as chief executive, promises guaranteed lucrative paydays for their competitors, with the winner of each tournament taking home £2.8 million and last place being worth £97 000. The eight-event series starts at Centurion Golf Club in southern England next month. But much of the controversy surrounding the league revolves around the fact it is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

South Africans Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace have all been linked with LIV Golf, while the PGA Tour in the United States and the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour) have both threatened life bans for anyone who plays in the breakaway series.

Sunshine Tour commissioner Thomas Abt told The Citizen on Thursday that while they have their own regulations, they would respect the DP World Tour’s decision when it comes to their tournaments.

He said discussions will still have to be held when it comes to the five co-sanctioned tournaments with them like the SA Open. But the Nedbank Golf Challenge, which returns to Sun City in November after a two-year absence due to Covid, is entirely a DP World Tour event, so Sunshine Tour rules do not apply.

“We have agreed a strategic alliance with the DP World Tour, but they must do whatever they see fit in their tournaments,” Abt said.

“But our Sunshine Tour regulations state that a golfer must ask for a release only if there is a conflicting event in the same territory of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands, at the same time.

“So we don’t have any rules to stop our members playing in events overseas, but the Nedbank Golf Challenge is wholly a DP World Tour event,” Abt explained.

The Sunshine Tour itself is in boisterous health with Abt announcing a new points-based order of merit, sponsored by Luno, on Thursday, as well as 35 tournaments next season, the most ever.

“Because there are such big discrepancies in prize funds between tournaments, we have introduced a tier-system for points to give the guys who support our tour through the year a genuine chance of winning the order of merit,” Abt said.

“The bigger events will be worth 12 000 points, but there are lots more tournaments worth 2000 points, so that those golfers who really support the Sunshine Tour can compete for top place.”

The winner of the 2022/23 order of merit will not only gain entry into the U.S. and British Opens and the Nedbank Golf Challenge, but have the use of a Jaguar/Land Rover for a year and win R500 000 of bitcoin from Luno.

One would not have guessed from Mark Boucher’s face that he was celebrating another Proteas series win on Monday, but the lack of a big smile was probably because the South Africa coach knows his first priority now is to save his job in the face of those in South African cricket who are intent on his removal.

The Proteas ended their season on Monday in Gqeberha with a crunching 332-run win over Bangladesh for a 2-0 series win and an overall record of five wins from seven Tests this summer.

Combined with their unexpectedly good showing at the T20 World Cup and their brilliant 3-0 ODI whitewash of India, their coach should be sitting pretty and all smiles.

But instead Boucher will be facing a disciplinary hearing next month over charges of gross misconduct. In terms of his on-field job, in the here-and-now, about the only shortcomings of this Test side have been their annoying tendency to lose the first Test of a series, as they did against India and in New Zealand.

“It’s been a good summer, but we are still learning, we’re definitely not the complete team yet,” Boucher said sternly. “We’ve had our challenges, but we’ve played some very competitive cricket at times.

“There have also been times when we have played some bad cricket, like the first Tests against India and New Zealand. But we have grown a lot in a short space of time.

“For me personally, it has been tough. I’ve really enjoyed coaching the guys and the cricketing side of my job, it’s a tight unit. But outside that team environment, it’s quite difficult to say I enjoyed it.

“I don’t think anyone would be able to say they enjoy what has been put on my plate,” Boucher said.

The 45-year-old was famous for being a fighter though in his playing days, and overcoming challenges is his trademark, something his team managed to do against Bangladesh when they were lumped with a second-string side due to five players choosing to go to the IPL instead.

“It gave us the opportunity to play a couple of other guys and see what sort of players we have in the system. And also the opportunity to play a different brand of cricket, which has been good to watch.

“It’s a nice position to be in. The IPL guys did vacate their spots, and there is good competition now for those places. Through Covid we’ve looked at a lot of players and I think it’s paying off now,” Boucher said.

But even though things on the field are going well right now, the sum of all real South African cricket lovers’ fears could well come true if Boucher is fired for incidents that happened in the changeroom two decades ago.

Shakib al-Hasan ensured that there was no shelter for a lacklustre South African bowling attack as his scintillating 77 carried Bangladesh to their highest ever total on South African soil and thereafter their first victory here as they beat the Proteas by 38 runs in the first ODI at Centurion on Friday night.

Shakib’s classy 64-ball innings led Bangladesh to 314/7 after they were sent in to bat, well above average (276) for a day/night game at SuperSport Park and the tourists’ second-highest score against South Africa anywhere, behind their winning 330/6 in the World Cup match at the Oval in 2019.

Shakib came to the wicket in the 22^nd over after openers Tamim Iqbal (41) and Liton Das (50) both faced 67 deliveries and gave Bangladesh a solid start by putting on 95 for the first wicket off 133 deliveries.

Shakib provided tremendous impetus as he dominated the middle overs with wonderfully clean striking and a plucky, pugnacious attitude that saw him back himself to take on the short-pitched deliveries and also to improvise cheekily as well.

He had the perfect ally in Yasir Ali, who, having scored just a single and a duck in his previous two ODI innings, made his maiden half-century, also landing some great blows in a nifty 50 off 43 balls. Shakib and Yasir added 115 for the fourth wicket off just 83 deliveries.

If the Proteas were to harbour any hopes of making what would have been the second-highest total ever batting second at Centurion, then they needed a similarly solid top-order display.

But instead they slumped to 36/3 as Taskin Ahmed (10-1-36-3) and left-armer Shoriful Islam (8-0-47-2) bowled with tremendous fire and energy up front.

It was in stark contrast to the Proteas bowlers who only took their first wicket in the 22^nd over, and then leaked 91 runs in the last 10 overs. One imagines the wicket-taking skills of wrist-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi may well be employed in the second ODI, while unavoidable questions will continue to be asked about the exclusion of Sisanda Magala, arguably South Africa’s most skilful death bowler, on fitness grounds.

The determined duo of skipper Temba Bavuma (31) and Rassie van der Dussen attempted to rebuild the innings with their fourth-wicket stand of 85, but Bavuma was bounced out by the fiery Shoriful.

Van der Dussen battled on with characteristic tenacity, adding another 70 with David Miller, but he was caught at deep backward square-leg off Taskin for 86 off 98 balls.

There is no more passionate finisher of innings than Miller, but he was left with way too much to do on his own, his sumptuous 79 off 57 balls deserving more support from his team-mates.

Keshav Maharaj (23) and Lungi Ngidi (15*) hit three sixes between them as they had some fun at the death with a 34-run last-wicket stand that took South Africa to 276 all out.

Off-spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz benefited from the wild slog at the end to claim 4/61, but the damage had been done by his splendid pace bowlers.