Ken Borland

Rising South African star Callum Mowat no doubt has a date with destiny waiting for him on the Sunshine Tour and the 23-year-old is confident that if it comes this week in the Africa Open at East London Golf Club, he will be ready.

Mowat, a leading amateur golfer, turned pro in 2014 and finished a highly-creditable 62nd on the Order of Merit. He has built on that solid start to his professional career with impressive recent form that saw him finish in a tie for third at the Dimension Data Pro-Am and then tied-13th at last week’s Joburg Open, earning himself over R400 000 for the fortnight and lifting him to ninth in this year’s money-list.

“I’m in good form at the moment and I’m getting used to playing alongside some top golfers, playing with my role-models, just putting that aside. I feel like I’m finding my comfort zone and if I get towards the top of the leaderboard on Sunday, I’m ready to take my chances, I’ll definitely go for it. You never know what might happen,” Mowat said on Tuesday at East London Golf Club.

Mowat was pleased with his efforts at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club in the Joburg Open, which was just the fourth co-sanctioned European Tour event he has played in. An opening round of 71 on the West Course was his undoing, but rounds of 65, 71 and 68 on the tough East Course showed what he is capable of.

“I had a good finish in the Joburg Open, but it was a pity about my start – to shoot level-par on the West Course when most of the golfers were going more deep under-par there,” Mowat said.

A tied-29th finish at last year’s Tshwane Open was his previous best finish in a co-sanctioned event, and Mowat is looking forward to competing with the best in windy coastal conditions now.

There is reportedly a gale brewing and heading towards East London in time for the Africa Open, but the Central Gauteng-based Mowat is unconcerned.

“I’ve done well in windy conditions previously and if it blows this week then I could have a look in,” the winner of the 2013 Southern Cape Amateur Championship said. “I played an SA Amateur here in East London and it’s a good course, you can do well if you keep the ball in play. I think that’s the key because there’s a lot of bush around.

“My ball-flight is lower, not like most Gauteng golfers, which helps in the wind. I’m more of a ‘feel’ golfer, I think I can manipulate the ball quite well and I enjoy playing different shots. I enjoy the challenge, you have to really think about where to hit the ball and then ‘feel’ it in there, it becomes a fun game,” Mowat said.

The shortness of the East London Golf Club course – it measures just 6051 metres but is hilly – also suits the talented all-round sportsman from King Edward VII High School.

“Pitching is my strength and on the shorter courses I’ve done better because of that. It all depends on the wind though, because if it blows the wrong way then it can make the course very long,” Mowat said.

The value of experience at the old-style course, one of the oldest in South Africa, that mixes aspects of parkland and links golf, is shown by the list of previous winners – Thomas Aiken, Darren Fichardt, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Retief Goosen – but Mowat is confident he can carry the confidence from winning at amateur level into the paid ranks.

“I think it will be the same feeling at the top of the leaderboard, there will obviously be nerves. The fact that you’re playing for money makes it a bit bigger, but it’s still the trophy you’re playing for at the end.

“You just have to try and keep it together down the stretch, it’s just a bigger event. It’s about coping with pressure and I just need to think about how I’ve done it before,” Mowat said.

– http://www.elgc.co.za/ELGCNewsroom/tabid/41/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/104/Default.aspx

It’s always been a very South African thing, especially in rugby and cricket, for us to look over the Indian Ocean at our archrivals New Zealand and Australia, and try and copy what they are doing.

Notwithstanding the fact that Australian cricket teams and New Zealand rugby sides have generally been the best in the world during the last two decades, it is a habit that is not always beneficial for our national teams. Mostly because we have different strengths and therefore what works best for them won’t necessarily be the best approach for us.

But there is one current debate in Springbok rugby which I believe can be neatly resolved by taking a leaf out of the All Blacks’ book.

Amongst the many unfair criticisms that are being hurled at Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer, one of the least intelligent ones is that he is going to take a geriatric team to the World Cup. In this regard, I have to say, like our venerable Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu did recently in supporting HelpAge International, that “I am for people of all ages”.

Looking back at the previous seven World Cups, it is clear that nobody is going to win the Webb Ellis Cup without experience. Meyer is certainly not alone in wanting to include some cool older heads in his side – we need only look at the team New Zealand coach Steve Hansen put on the field yesterday to open their Rugby Championship campaign.

With only a handful of matches left before they begin the defence of their 2011 title, Hansen is not going to be messing around with players that aren’t going to be in contention for the World Cup.

The All Blacks team that belted Argentina in Christchurch yesterday contained half-a-dozen players who are over 30 – Ma’a Nonu, Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Jerome Kaino, Keven Mealamu and Tony Woodcock. Add in 29-year-olds Kieran Read and Luke Romano, and the average age of yesterday’s starting XV was 29.13 years.

The likes of Ben Smith (29) and Conrad Smith (33) are almost certainly going to be World Cup starters and other players who should return and will push up the average age are Julian Savea (24 compared to Charles Piutau 23), Aaron Smith (26, while TJ Perenara is 23) and Liam Messam (31).

The likely All Blacks team for a World Cup final would have an average age of 29.60 years.

Meyer’s probable first-choice team – Le Roux, Pietersen, De Villiers, De Allende, Habana, Pollard, Du Preez, Vermeulen, Alberts, Louw, Matfield, Etzebeth, Du Plessis x2 and Mtawarira – is actually younger than that – 29.33 years.

There are nine players over 30, but there are also three key players who are 23 or younger – 23-year-old centre Damian de Allende (Jan Serfontein is 22), 21-year-old flyhalf Handre Pollard and 23-year-old lock Eben Etzebeth. That seems to me to be a good balance between experience and youthful energy.

And there’s even a chance that the Springboks will have some outrageous young talent like Marcell Coetzee (24), Pieter-Steph du Toit (22), Frans Malherbe (24) and Steven Kitshoff (23) dancing around the UK fields, which would make South Africa’s team even younger.

So the next time an ill-informed someone moans about the geriatric Springbok team at the World Cup, those are the facts to dispel that argument; New Zealand, the outright favourites and world number ones, have an even older side!

In the pressure-cooker environment of a do-or-die knockout game at the World Cup, you need players who have been there and done it, who have proven their mettle when the stakes are highest.

The SuperBowl is a television extravaganza and one of the major sporting events of the year, and yet in this country only a minority of sports fans seem to pay much attention to it. But there is one South African sporting legend who is a keen follower of gridiron and American sport in general.

Naas Botha has had a fascination for American Football since his groundbreaking move to the United States in 1983 when he tried out as a placekicker for the Dallas Cowboys. It was a sensational move by the best flyhalf in the world of rugby, from the amateur game to the different world of American pro sport.

While it helped Botha establish himself as a true professional athlete, since 1995 and the end of amateurism in rugby union, there has been little interest by other rugby players in playing American Football.

But Botha believes it won’t be long before a top-class player is lured by the promise of a massive payday in the United States.

“The problem I had when I went over was that I turned up with nothing, with no track record. Half of the people there didn’t even know where South Africa was and they thought we were wandering around with lions. The whole structure of American Football means College football is very important and they take all your stats from there.

“It would be much better now for a player to go over. The rest of the world has a much better knowledge of American Football now and I think a lot more people involved in gridiron know about rugby. Thanks to social media, I think a lot of them will even know about Handre Pollard for instance.

“Organisations like Laureus also bring a lot more attention to American sports. World sport is at a different level these days: in the U.S. they know about our top rugby players and South Africans know about what opportunities there are outside the country. Look at how many players are in France or England; compare that to when I went to play in Italy in 1987 and there was such a big hoohaa,” Botha told The Citizen.

Kicking in American Football is of course not just about distance and accuracy: Botha estimates you have about 1.2 seconds to kick a field goal and it requires a different frame of mind compared to slotting conversions and penalties in rugby. Plus one has to get used to being allowed to be tackled without the ball in gridiron, hence all the protective equipment.

It was thanks to the innovative Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry, considered a legend in American Football after 29 years at the helm of the Texan franchise, that Botha played gridiron. But it was the presence of another Cowboys stalwart, Rafael Septien, that prevented the Springbok hero from making more of an impact. Botha was brought in as the back-up kicker, but Septien rarely broke down and so his appearances were limited.

Another South African placekicker, Gary Anderson, had better fortune and became one of the NFL’s leading all-time points-scorers with the Pittsburgh Steelers, even playing against Botha once.

It remains a regret for Botha that during those couple of years of gaining splinters on the bench, he did not take up other offers that came his way, particularly from College (university) teams.

“It was a great experience, being with a big team like the Cowboys, but I was just there at the wrong time. I hung around with the Cowboys, but I should have taken one of the university contracts I was offered. I could’ve taken my experience with the Cowboys with me, built a reputation and a stats base and worked my way through the ranks, but I didn’t know the set-up then,” Botha said.

As it was, he caught game time with the Dallas Harlequins in the national championship, inspiring them to their only triumph in that second-tier competition.

So what of this year’s SuperBowl?

Botha remains a Dallas Cowboys fan and was gutted when they lost 26-21 to the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs, but he concedes the New England Patriots have what it takes to claim their fourth SuperBowl title.

“I’m still a Cowboys fan and how they lost that playoff I don’t know, they blew it. I’ve watched both the Patriots and the Seahawks this year, they’re two very good sides, both very balanced. But I went for a mini-training camp with the Patriots and they are the team to beat, they’ve been fantastic lately,” he said.

What really intrigues SuperSport’s long-time rugby analyst about American Football though is what it can teach those running rugby in South Africa.

“The United States is where sport is at a different level, they’ve shown how professional sport should be run, why try and reinvent the wheel? They have franchises and I wonder if our top rugby teams should not be privately owned? Why postpone it any longer? The unions all have schools, junior and women’s rugby all to look after as well.

“In gridiron, players are on $50 million contracts, in baseball it can be $200 million. Here, if a union wants to keep Bryan Habana, they need to offer R30 million over three years but nobody can afford it. Do we really want to see all the top South African players based overseas?”

Hardus Viljoen, the leading wicket-taker over the last three seasons of Sunfoil Series cricket, will not be lost to the South African game and has signed a fresh two-year contract with the Highveld Lions, the fast bowler confirmed on Thursday.

Viljoen has not yet been capped by the Proteas, despite taking 103 wickets in the last three seasons at a superb average of 23.95, and was considering overtures from the Central Districts franchise in New Zealand, the idea being to qualify for the Black Caps after four years and thereby open the door to a lucrative English county contract because he would then be an international player.

“I’m not going to New Zealand, I’ve decided to stay and work within the system here. My time with the Lions franchise has been very rewarding and I still need to do a lot more to get to where I want to be. Everything happens at the right time for the right reasons and God’s timing is perfect. I believe my future is here in South Africa and I’m very excited that I’m going to be with the Lions for another couple of years,” Viljoen told The Citizen on Thursday.

At 26, Viljoen is still relatively young and, as the likes of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel cut back on their international commitments, he can surely expect a call-up to the national team in the next couple of years, having already played nine games, in both four-day and 50-over cricket, for representative A sides.

In the meantime, with Chris Morris having moved from the Lions to the Titans, Viljoen will be the leader of the Sunfoil Series champions’ attack.

“We are absolutely delighted that Hardus has signed a two-year contract [the maximum allowed] because not having Chris is a big loss. Hardus is experienced, so it’s a comforting feeling having him and Kagiso Rabada is coming through strongly as well,” Lions CEO Greg Fredericks said.

The Lions have given new contracts to pace bowlers Sean Jamison and Nono Pongolo, who burst on to the scene last season with 43 wickets at 16.30 for the Gauteng team.