Ken Borland

Kiera Floyd, a 19-year-old South African prodigy and Englishwoman Georgia Coughlin, who took to the sport late, are leading alongside Ellen Hutchinson-Kay, a Swede who came through the U.S. College system, after the first round of the Fidelity ADT Ladies Challenge at the Blue Valley Golf Estate on Wednesday.

The trio all started on the 10th tee and posted four-under-par 68s on a sweltering day in Centurion, giving them a one-stroke lead over six golfers on three-under on a congested leaderboard.

Floyd won the Benoni Country Club Ladies Championship aged nine, she finished third in the Sunshine Ladies Tour’s Jabra Classic aged 14, and she won the South African Women’s Strokeplay Championship in 2022 before turning professional at the beginning of last year. She has already racked up three more top-10 finishes on tour.

On Wednesday Floyd birdied the 10th, 12th, 17th and 18th holes to go out in 33, and although the front nine proved more challenging, a birdie at the ninth saw her come home in one-under.

Coughlin only took up golf when she was 16 and living in Saudi Arabia, but by the time she was 23 she had a Ladies European Tour card.

The 28-year-old had a dramatic start with three birdies and a bogey in her first four holes, going out in 34 and then making further gains with birdies on the first and fourth holes. Coughlin closed bogey-birdie, as did Hutchinson-Kay and Floyd.

Hutchinson-Kay is a University of Mississippi graduate and she also turned pro last year. The 25-year-old finished just outside the top-10 in the previous Sunshine Ladies Tour event, the SuperSport Ladies Challenge.

On Wednesday, Hutchinson-Key did the bulk of her scoring in a fantastic run of four birdies in five holes from the 14th.

For Floyd, the back nine (her front) was also the time to capitalise.

“Today was a good day, I hit the ball really nicely and gave myself lots of opportunities, which you have to grab when you can. This course definitely suits us big-hitters, it’s always open and you can let go a bit. I was normally hitting seven-iron into the greens,” Floyd said.

“I didn’t give myself as much opportunity on the front nine, but I pulled through in the end, to finish with a tap-in birdie was really nice. I made two silly mistakes that cost me birdies, but that’s okay, you just have to move on. You need to keep level-headed and not get ahead of yourself.”

The Sunshine Ladies Tour golfers showed their talents in impressive fashion on Wednesday at the oblong Blue Valley Golf Estate, despite the heat, with 27 of the 61-strong field finishing under-par. The increased opportunities provided by the tour are clearly paying off, and are attracting strong international competition, and it is thanks to partners like Fidelity ADT.

Wahl Bartmann, the CEO of Fidelity Services Group, said “As Southern Africa’s largest integrated security solutions provider, we are committed to uplifting and supporting women’s professional sport. Our partnership with the Sunshine Ladies Tour allows us to show our support tangibly and help create more opportunities for women in sport.” 

Renier von Zeuner, the Group Sponsorship Manager, added “We have been involved with the SA Open, as well as the Senior Tour, for a number of years, so adding a Sunshine Ladies Tour event to our portfolio is a tremendous privilege. We are honoured to contribute to the work done by the Sunshine Ladies Tour team, and incredibly proud of our group’s commitment to women’s sport.”

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.

SOUTHBROOM, KwaZulu-Natal – The most obvious thing young, up-and-coming golfers need is the opportunity to compete, and veteran Sunshine Tour campaigner Hennie Otto has praised the sponsors of this week’s event at San Lameer, Vodacom, for the critical role they have played in the development of the sport in this country.

Otto has been on tour since 1997/98, when it was actually known as the Vodacom Tour, and is teeing it up this week in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series event at San Lameer Country Club as one of the favourites, given his ninth position on the current Luno Order of Merit.

As a senior statesman of the tour and someone who has enjoyed its benefits so much, Otto is eager to ensure the younger generation get the same exposure and rewards.

“Vodacom have been involved in golf in this country for more than 20 years and what they’ve really done is develop golfers,” Otto said after the first round of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Pro-Am at San Lameer.

“Every young golfer needs opportunity in order to have a successful career, and if nobody creates those opportunities for them, then they won’t get them.

“I’ve played with Mr Mzimba [William, CEO Vodacom Business Group] a few times in these Vodacom Origins of Golf Pro-Ams and he tells me about the dozen or so development players they help. Hopefully those guys really come through, and even if just five of them do then it is still something special.

“The tour is definitely growing and I think in the years to come, it is just going to get bigger,” Otto said.

While the Sunshine Tour has seen a number of very promising young players shine this year, the fairways are still very much the lair of experienced pros like Otto, Jean Hugo, who is seventh on the Luno Order of Merit, and Jaco van Zyl, who won last weekend at Selborne Park Golf Club.

The 46-year-old Otto is still hitting the ball well and looked in hot form last weekend when he finished second to Van Zyl at the Gary and Vivienne Player Challenge. It was his fourth top-six finish this season, a ray of hope after a couple of very tough years following the passing of his wife in 2020.

“As a senior, some of the guys call me ‘Oom’, but this ‘Oom” can still play now and again,” Otto smiles. “I’ve been doing nicely, I just haven’t finished off like I want to.

“But I’m close to where I want to be both mentally and physically, although I’m a bit overweight – I’ve had a few braais,” he laughs.

“But there are nice tournaments coming up, we’re building up and up for the big ones at the end of the year, and the more you finish up the leaderboard, the more confident you get.

“I’ve played all those tournaments before, I know the places, so I’ll be even more comfortable,” Otto said.

For cricket lovers, especially those who value the Test format above all others, the direction in which the sport seems to be heading, judging by the events of the last week, are enough to make you want to tear your hair out.

For many, the fact that the Proteas, who seem on the verge of entering a very exciting era in red-ball cricket, will play just 28 Tests in the next five years is infuriating and bordering on tragic at the same time. When one sees how fabulously Kagiso Rabada is bowling, how promising his fellow pacemen Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi and Marco Jansen look, as well as spin-king Keshav Maharaj, and one realises they will never get the chance to put up the same sort of numbers as lesser cricketers from England, India or Australia, then it is natural to feel great distress.

And then one seeks someone to blame for the damage they have done to something as loved and cherished as Test cricket.

Which just leads to more frustration because there are a multitude of players who have let down the game – the International Cricket Council, The Big Three, Cricket South Africa, all the different T20 franchise leagues, broadcasters, sponsors, and even us, the fans.

I am confident Test cricket will be played in heaven, where there will be infinite resources, but here on earth the game has to deal with finite amounts of time and money. Test cricket takes up the most time (part of its attraction for me), while T20 generates the most money.

When it comes to money, only The Big Three of India, England and Australia are financially secure and can carry on as normal, although their tendency to hog the calendar and the dollars amongst themselves does no good to the game as a whole, unless they are happy having just three countries playing at the top level.

For the rest, they are being squeezed into an intractable situation where they cannot afford to play bilateral cricket unless it is against one of the above trio, and they are also losing spots on the calendar and their top players to the T20 leagues that are, frankly, becoming an epidemic.

No matter how well the Proteas are doing, we have to realise that, however we try to dress up our cricket, we have become bit-part players in the global game. The fact that only Zimbabwe will play less international cricket over the next five years says it all.

Although the new administration are doing a good job in bringing stability to South African cricket, the failures of the previous boards and executive is now coming back to haunt them. Not only did they leave CSA with empty coffers, but we have little standing at the ICC. South African cricket is seen as insignificant players in the boardroom, their administrators inexperienced in the ruthless environment of the ICC.

One often wonders whether the ICC are there to look after the best interests of all the countries that play the game or are they just there to do the bidding of the three nations that dominate or monopolise the sport. On their own website, they say “the ICC governs and administrates the game and works with our members to grow the sport”.

Is that in just three countries or globally and surely governs implies a leadership role?

While fingers are rightfully pointed at the ICC for their lack of leadership in grappling with these complex issues, we, as fans, also need to look at ourselves.

South Africa’s reduced Test schedule was greeted with outrage and, as CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki has said, hopefully that hunger for more long-form cricket will translate into much-improved attendances at the stadiums.

So bring your families and show the powers-that-be and the broadcasters that Test cricket is still a much-loved product.

Recent surveys by Fica, the international body of players’ associations, show that the majority of players still regard Test cricket as the pinnacle.

Let’s all get behind that sentiment.