Ken Borland

“Keep your feet on the ground and reach for the stars” was the catchphrase of famous American radio DJ Casey Kasem, also used by renown South African disc-jockey David Gresham, and although it comes from a time well before Casey Jarvis was born, it aptly describes what the rising star is doing on golf courses around the world at the moment.

Jarvis, who turned 20 in July, is currently firmly in the mix for the South African Open title at Blair Atholl Golf and Equestrian Estate and, at the end of a breakthrough year for one of the most decorated amateurs in local history it is his mature, measured approach that has caught the eye.

It was noticeable from the second round when the SA Open organisers began using devilishly tricky pin-placements and an inconsistent, shifting wind picked up, how adept Jarvis was at not taking on the ‘sucker-flags’ and finding the best places on the greens.

Jarvis has game, of that there can be no doubt given his stellar CV, but he also has the priceless attribute of a level head. It is that strong mentality that saw him notch his first overseas win as a professional in Austria in his last couple of weeks as a teenager, as part of his dominance of the Challenge Tour that led to him winning his DP World Tour card for the coming season.

The State Mines Country Club representative was in touching distance of the lead going into the 2022 Joburg Open at Houghton Golf Club, before fading on the weekend, but he says he is a different player to the one who left South Africa to take on Europe, and those changes were apparent as he soared up the leaderboard at Blair Atholl.

“Playing overseas is so difficult, the courses in Europe are so different to back home here in SA and you’ve got to really learn how to manage your game. I’ve learnt so much since last year’s Joburg Open,” Jarvis said.

“The Challenge Tour taught me not to be as aggressive. I learnt patience – I don’t need to hit it to five feet on every hole, which I used to want to, because my putting is good enough. I don’t need to attack all the flags, I don’t need to go for every par-five in two, I must just make sure I am straight off the tee-box.

“You’ve got to manage your game and I think I’m doing that really well this week. I can still be aggressive when I need to be and I’m happy that it all seems to be coming together,” Jarvis said.

Born in Boksburg on July 28, 2003, Casey David Jarvis has a biography that makes for riveting reading.

In 2020 he won both the South African Strokeplay Championship and the South African Amateur Championship before claiming the Freddie Tait Cup for the leading amateur at that year’s South African Open. It was a treble only achieved twice before, by the legendary Bobby Locke in 1935 and by Neville Clarke, who beat Ernie Els to those amateur crowns in 1989 but only turned pro in his senior years because he had a successful career as an electrical engineer.

If Jarvis now goes on to win the SA Open at Blair Atholl, he will join Locke, an eight-time champion who also won four British Open Championships, in rarefied air.

Jarvis’s amateur career also included winning the Junior World Cup with the South African team in 2019 as well as the African Amateur Championship back-to-back in 2021 and 2022. In 2020 he was named the America-based AmateurGolf.com Men’s Player of the Year despite not playing College golf.

Jarvis was last season’s Sunshine Tour Rookie of the Year following a season in which he also became the second-youngest golfer globally to shoot a 59 on a major tour, which he achieved at the prestigious Players Championship at Dainfern.

For such a seasoned winner, triumphing on the Challenge Tour did not come easy for Jarvis, but he showed his character with his win in Austria because it came after back-to-back runners-up finishes just a month earlier in the Czech Republic and Copenhagen.

But there is a cautionary tale in flesh at Blair Atholl of young superstars burning themselves out, in Matteo Manassero, also strongly contending for the title. The Italian won three times on the European Tour as a teenager before losing his card in 2019. Now aged 30, he is back on the DP World Tour.

“There are many things that led to my struggles, but one of the most important is that I definitely became focused on results and forgot about the process and what worked for me,” Manassero told Rapport.

“Once you start going down that spiral of needing results week after week, it gets in your head and you neither improve your game nor your results. If your game is good enough week in, week out, then your results will come.

“But expectations can mean you are only focused on results and it is easy to fall into that trap. ‘Am I improving?’ should be your only focus, not making cuts, not keeping your card, not being top-50 in the world. Those are important goals but they are not the most important thing,” Manassero warned.

Fortunately, even though Jarvis admitted the Austrian win did buck him up after the two close misses, he said winning the SA Open on Sunday will not be his be-all and end-all.

“I’m just going to stick to what I’m doing, my golf feels good and I’m very comfortable and relaxed on the course, like a social round. I will just try to stay patient.

“It’s a big mental thing. I forced it for those second-place finishes, I really wanted to win and I just put more pressure on myself when there’s already enough pressure on you.

“I took a step back in Austria and just tried to go out and see what happened. I’ve learnt not to put so much pressure on myself because then I don’t play the way I want to. After finishing second so many times, to get it done was a good feeling. But I really did not expect to be doing these things when I was still so young.

“If I don’t win the SA Open, I would have learnt a lot,” Jarvis said.

Sunday’s Betway Pink Day ODI between the Proteas and the Netherlands at the DP World Wanderers Stadium will be played on the same pitch that was used for the high-scoring final T20 between South Africa and the West Indies, and building a suitable strategy for the short boundary on the scoreboard side will be a key factor in the game.

The boundary on the eastern side of the Wanderers will be just 57 metres away from the pitch and, if targeting the short side was not a priority already, Enza Construction have added their own incentive for the two teams, while also demonstrating their passion for serving the communities they help develop.

Enza Construction have placed a billboard to the left of the scoreboard and the first batsman to hit this on the full will earn himself R250 000 with the company donating another R250 000 in celebration to the Pink Day charities that support breast cancer awareness, education, early detection, treatment and research. If no-one manages to hit a six into the target, then Enza Construction will still make a R100 000 donation to the Pink Day cause.

“Being a proud contributor to our community is a core value at Enza Construction and we are passionate about the health and wellbeing of the people within those communities. We want to give our support to those people who are working tirelessly to overcome breast cancer.

“To that end we fully support the Pink Day cause and want to do our bit to promote and boost their efforts to encourage routine screening for early detection for what is now the most common cancer diagnosed globally,” Clinton Crowie, the executive director of Enza Construction, said.

The Proteas were not able to come up with the goods in the third and final T20 against the West Indies, but they will be banking on better execution of what they believe is a suitable plan for the short boundary.

“That short side really is quite small and logic tells you to try and stay away from there if you’re the bowler. It’s a test of our skills and it comes down to execution,” Aiden Markram, captain in the T20 series, said.

“You try and play the percentages, but a team like the West Indies were mishitting sixes on the long side! When bowling, you just try and bowl really wide outside off-stump, and you also have to use slower-ball bouncers and balls at the batsmen’s heels. We’re happy with our plans,” Markram said.

While Enza are leaders in construction, the Proteas have a master of destruction in their team in opener Quinton de Kock. The left-hander will certainly be targeting the short boundary and the Enza billboard when he is batting at the Corlett Drive End at the Wanderers on Sunday.

The former Proteas captain, as ever, simplified his approach when it comes to unusual field dimensions.

“Certain situations demand different ways of going about things, but as a batter, you’re just trying to target that boundary in any way possible. As a bowler, you’re just trying your best not to get hit there,” De Kock said.

“But on the Highveld, as we saw at Centurion in the T20s against the West Indies, a short boundary is not always relevant because the ball travels so far up here.”

The more sixes there are the better, of course, as various sponsors are lining up to add their bit to the sponsorship of the fight against breast cancer.

There is a wonderful saying in Afrikaans that is often used on the recalcitrant or the idle: they are told to ‘ruk julle reg!’.

It can be roughly translated as meaning ‘Shape up or ship out’ and fans watching the slide of the Springbok team towards mediocrity will no doubt be using it ahead of South Africa’s Rugby Championship match against Australia in Sydney on Saturday.

While the wretched display in Adelaide last weekend means the players desperately need to take a big step up in terms of executing basic skills and decision-making, it is also the management who need to up their game and thereby elevate the standard of rugby the Springboks are producing on the pitch.

While there are critics who say they rick their necks watching the Springboks kick the ball sky-high all game, or fall asleep while watching them scrum or maul for penalties, these are valid tactics. But they should be used as a means to an end, and not an end in themselves.

Much as coach Jacques Nienaber may hate it, penalties are only worth three points and tries are worth five, seven if converted. Which is why Australia, despite conceding 16 penalties against just nine given away by South Africa, won comfortably last weekend, scoring three tries to two.

And it’s not as if these Springboks can’t play attacking rugby or can’t score tries. It’s just that they hide that ability away behind an ultra-conservative game-plan that puts so much emphasis on the build-up and the process that there is very little room for the sort of instinctive, opportunistic rugby that can actually create tries against a defence that is as good as the Wallabies’ shifting line was last weekend.

While it is scary to go into a Test in Sydney without such key injured players as Lukhanyo Am, Handre Pollard, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Elton Jantjies, I am actually excited to see how their replacements go.

Damian Willemse was so positive with ball-in-hand last weekend, but his team-mates were often on a different wavelength. Let’s hope he can bring control and direction to the game at flyhalf, as well as some of that offensive brilliance.

Jesse Kriel will be chomping at the bit to start at outside centre again, while Canan Moodie’s Test debut is a dream story for someone who wasn’t even in the Bulls’ URC squad at the start of last season.

What was especially disappointing last weekend was the number of Springbok attacks that ran aground on the Great Barrier that was Australia’s defensive reef, mostly due to poor execution or naïve strategies.

Better attacking plans need to be put in place in order to fully utilise the talent in this Springbok side. The Wallabies’ slingshot defence is well-known, they give teams space on the outside and usher them into touch, so it was especially disappointing to see the Springboks crabbing across the field like they did when Du Toit passed into touch. At the start of the move, from turnover ball, there had been a clear overlap.

An excellent show to watch when it comes to dissecting the Springboks’ performances is Owen Nkumane’s Final Whistle. Both Swys de Bruin and Nick Mallett, two great attacking coaches of previous South African teams, were in agreement that the current side’s offensive efforts have not passed muster.

Mostly because they seem to be waiting for the perfect moment to attack, instead of trying to engineer those opportunities with more ambitious play. So many chances were not used in the 22 perhaps because the players are not in a suitably positive, attacking mindset?

Beating the Wallabies in Australia has always been a torrid Test for the Springboks, and now they need to do it under pressure and with key injuries. They will need to show massive character.

Wandisile Simelane has a burning desire to improve his game in all facets and his time with the extended Springbok squad last year and his move to the Bulls for the 2022/23 season have been used as a means to gather as much proficiency as he can.

Simelane has long been considered as one of the country’s brightest young talents and his selection for the initial 46-man squad for the British and Irish Lions series raised hopes of him making his Springbok debut.

In the end the established and world-class pairing of Lukhanyo Am and Damian de Allende did South Africa proud, but Simelane soaked up the atmosphere and the learnings to be gained at elite level.

“I learnt a lot, and I realised I need to get better in every aspect of my game, including things like work-rate, training and just being in that environment,” Simelane told The Citizen.

“It really helped me both as an individual and as a rugby player. Just being around Lukhanyo Am, who is one of the best No.13s in the world, you put yourself at a disadvantage if you don’t learn from him.

“He is an inspiration and a role-model to me, and there were others too like Jesse Kriel, Frans Steyn and Damian de Allende, who are great centres. You take bits and pieces from everyone and add it to your own game.

“I’ve always believed every rugby player in South Africa should aspire to play for the Springboks, and hopefully I’ll be back there sooner rather than later. It’s definitely my number one goal,” Simelane said.

While the 24-year-old did not want to go into the reasons why he left the Gauteng Lions this year, there was a sense among neutral observers that his game did not grow at Ellis Park, the Lions did not make the best use of him, over the last year, and playing in an exciting Bulls backline featuring Springboks in Embrose Papier, Morne Steyn, Lionel Mapoe, Cornal Hendricks, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Sbu Nkosi, Johan Goosen and now Canan Moodie, could see Simelane fulfil his potential in the coming season.

Apart from all that star quality and wise old heads, Simelane, as a Jeppe High old boy, was also delighted to come under the wing of school legend Jake White, and also get the chance to play alongside Nkosi, Jeppe’s most recent Springbok.

“Jake winning the World Cup in 2007 was a massive achievement and knowing he’s a Jeppe old boy, he’s a great hero at the school and in South African rugby generally,” Simelane said.

“When the opportunity came to be coached by him at the Bulls, I didn’t think twice. I can gain so much knowledge from him.

“Unfortunately, when Sbu played first XV at Jeppe, I was still U16 and I missed playing with him by one year,” Simelane said.

As fate would have it, the Bulls’ opening United Rugby Championship fixture this season is against the Lions at Ellis Park on September 17, but the Johannesburg-born player will not be focusing on the unhappy memories of his previous home.

“I’m definitely excited to start the season and I’m looking at it as my first game for the Bulls and not the first match I will play against the Lions.”

The Lions tended to shift Simelane away from the midfield and play him on the wing, but he said this was not the cause of his unhappiness.

“I don’t mind at all, I don’t care if I play wing, centre or fullback, as long as I am in the team. It doesn’t bother me much. Number 13 is my main position, my number one choice, where I want to be a specialist.”

The defensive nous required to be a world-class outside centre will no doubt come with more experience, but what Simelane already possesses are the feet of a magician.

“I guess it’s just natural instinct, it’s something that gets better and better the more I play, since my school days. But the key is to keep working on it,” Simelane, who first started playing rugby in Grade V at Dalmondeor Primary in Johannesburg South, said.

He is a nightmare to defend against if he’s in space because of his ability to not only beat the man with a late sidestep, but also his passing skills. Many of his team-mates have profited from delayed ball that has put them right through the gap.

“To make the most of space, I like to use the pass also. It depends on how you analyse different players, what you want to achieve as a team and also your feel for the game.

“The more I put myself in those situations in training, the more I will make the right decisions. It’s something I’ve had to work hard on too,” Simelane said.

Simelane will be 25 when the next World Cup is played and then the Springboks will surely enter a new cycle in terms of personnel. Hopefully the selectors don’t leave it too late to introduce him to the international stage that seems to be his destiny.