Table of contents for January 2021 in Compleat Golfer

So, after a year in the making we come to my favourite golf course in the whole of South Africa. It’s a course I could play every day of my life. If I could roll it up and carry it anywhere around the world with me, trust me, I would. Ladies and gentlemen … drum roll, please … I give you: Leopard Creek Country Club. It is without any shadow of a doubt the most challenging, brutal, yet beautiful masterpiece of a creation. I played it during the Alfred Dunhill Championship at the end of November and the greens were rolling over 14 on the Stimpmeter and there was a two-club breeze. The course was absolutely brutal and whenever you can play a golf course that is exceptionally difficult and…

The Olympics are scheduled for July. Where do you rank a men’s Olympic gold medal against the Majors? Gary Lemke (Compleat Golfer editor): I don’t think golfers actually ‘get it’. There are only two living Olympic golf gold medallists - Justin Rose and Inbee Park. The Olympics come round every four years (Covid-19 excepted], while there are four men’s and five women’s Majors each year. Plus, the entire ‘Olympic experience’ is completely different to any golf Major. If I were a Major-contending golfer I’d gladly swap a PGA Championship win for an Olympic gold. Thomas Abt (Sunshine Tour commissioner): Behind the Majors, as you are defined more by winning a Major and the fields for a Major tournament are stronger than the Olympics. That being said I think players will…

It’s been an interesting time for us on the Sunshine Tour as during the co-sanctioned tournaments with the European Tour we had to get used to new ways of managing tournaments under exceptional circumstances. The three co-sanctioned events - the Joburg Open, Alfred Dunhill Championship and South African Open - took place under strict Covid-related health protocols. Every player and caddie, as well as every other person involved with the tournaments who could be in contact with players, had to get a Covid test at the beginning of each week. We’ve had stringent rules in place about where you can stay and which areas you’re allowed to access. From a refereeing standpoint, it also meant you had to be cognisant of social distancing during rulings, and, of course, always wearing…

If you want to make a golf club, you have three choices: you can forge it, you can cast it, or you can mill it. All three methods are considered subtractive manufacturing, meaning material is machined away - or subtracted - until you have a finished product 3D printing is additive manufacturing. Material is added together and fused - layer by layer - under computer control to make a 3D object. 3D printing has been a valuable research and development (R&D) tool for years, but Cobra is going into golf club manufacturing using HP 3D metal jet printers. However, printing metal parts is slow and expensive. That’s where HP comes in. ‘We’ve been hoping a day would come where we could use it for something besides just prototyping,’ says Ryan…

MEN OPEN 1 (1) Casey Jarvis (State Mines CC) 2 (2) Martin Vorster (Pinnacle Point GC) 3 (3) Kyle de Beer (Port Elizabeth GC) 4 (4) Yurav Premlall (Glendower GC) 5 (10) Jordan Duminy (Pinnacle Point GC) 6 (5) Christo Lamprecht (Pinnacle Point GC) 7 (6) Samuel Simpson (Royal Cape GC) 8 (7) Werner Deyzel (Woodhill CC) 9 (8) Ryan van Velzen (Benoni CC) 10 (9) Christiaan Maas (Pretoria CC) 11 (11) Christiaan Burke (Potchefstroom GC) 12 (14) Kieron van Wyk (Ruimsig CC) 13 (13) Francois van der Walt (Centurion CC) 14 (12) Aneurin Gounden (Glendower GC) 15 (17) Jordan Burnard (Ebotse GC) 16 (16) Jonothan Broomhead (Durban CC) 17 (15) Nikhil Gopal (Victoria CC) 18 (-) Oliver Goldhill (Magaliespark CC) 19 (-) Liam van Deventer (Magaliespark CC) 20 (-)…

We’re back on track for the Tokyo Olympics, after the year’s postponement due to the Covid-19 pandemia Last year the world No 1 and subsequent Masters champion, Dustin Johnson, announced that the Olympics don’t fit into his schedule, so his name doesn’t feature. The Olympic field is restricted to 60 players in each of the men’s and women’s competitions. The International Golf Federation (IGF) will use the Official World Golf Ranking as a method of determining participation. The top-15 world-ranked players will be eligible for the Olympics, with a limit of four players from any one country. Beyond the top 15, players will be eligible based on the World Ranking, with a maximum of two eligible players from each country that does not already have two or more players among…

We’ve all been there. Everything on our minds but golf. Life is a train wreck. But we can get out to play, and we know we need that time on the course. And we shoot the lights out. Jake Redman won the Lombard Insurance Classic on the Royal Swazi Spa layout outside Mbabane in eSwatini. He’d had three very quiet years on the Sunshine Tour, and he had even changed things up a bit by playing on the developmental Big Easy Tour in an attempt to recapture the form which had made him one of South Africa’s most promising young players. Heading towards a point where it might have made sense to chuck it all in, his life around him was a whirlwind. ‘I would sometimes wonder if l would…

I got a little nostalgic watching Wilco Nienaber announce himself to the golfing world at Rand park at the Joburg Open. Randpark was where I learned (or as my friends would argue, attempted and failed to learn) the game of golf. In the early 1990s I was living in Johannesburg and existing on the food and drink served at press conferences It was Guy Hawthorne, then the cricketing correspondent of the Star, who invited me to join the media contingent who played golf at Randpark on a Wednesday morning. It was an offer no one could refuse as Cable le Grange, the genial resident professional there, allowed the press to play 18 holes for R20 Quite how long this largesse had been in operation I never knew, but if the…

Dylan Frittelli congratulates Christiaan Bezuidenhout on his five-shot victory at the SA Open at Gary Player Country Club. The 26-year-old became the first man in three years to win successive titles on the European Tour after shooting a final-round three-under 69 to finish on 18 under par. Casey Jarvis celebrates with the Freddie Tait Cup after finishing as the leading amateur at the SA Open. Jarvis ended tie-25th on one under par to claim the rare treble in a calendar year after also winning the SA Stroke Play Championship and the SA Amateur Championship titles in 2020. Tributes poured in for former BBC commentator Peter Alliss after the legendary ‘voice of golf’ passed away at his home at the age of 89. Alliss, who won more than 20 tournaments during…

6 The number of South Africans to have won at least $10-million on the PGA Tour: Ernie Els [11th], Retief Goosen (36th), Tim Clark (62nd), Louis Oosthuizen (70th), Chari Schwartzel (100th) and Trevor Immelman (156th). 7 Non-Americans who feature in the top 20 on the all-time PGA Tour’s money-earning list. They are led by Vijay Singh (Fiji, 4th), Adam Scott (Australia, 6th), Justin Rose (England, 7th), Rory McIlroy (Northern Ireland, 8th), Sergio Garcia (Spain, 9th), Ernie Els (SA, 11th) and Jason Day (Australia, 12th). 9 The number of golfers who have earned over $10-million in prize money on the PGA Tour without winning a tournament. They are Charlie Wi, Brett Quigley, Graham DeLaet, Cameron Tringale, Brendon de Jonge, Jason Kokrak, Jeff Overton, Briny Baird and Brian Davis, who has won…

Dustin Johnson was the big winner at The Masters and drove away from Magnolia Lane wearing that famed Green Jacket which is a dream for any professional golfer. Only the tiniest percentage ever get to realise that lifelong goal, though. But there was another big winner from the week at Augusta, even though he didn’t get to swing a golf dub Trevor Immelman won The Masters in 2008 so. like DJ. he has had that treasured Green Jacket experience, but he wouldn’t have been reflecting too much on the 2020 Masters once he signed off from his golf commentary duties that week. Instead he will have taken great delight when running his finger down the final leaderboard Staring back at him will have been the names Cameron Smith. Sungjae Im.…

Hole No 12,318m, par four By the time you get to the 12th hole you’ve probably exhausted your ‘selfies limit’ for the day, but this is a course that keeps on giving those moments. This hole is one that does just that. But as golf director Quintin Byleveldt explains, if you are able to block out the ocean on the right, you’ll have a lot of success on this hole. ‘Everyone seems to look at the ocean instead of the fairway When you stand on the tee box you have this wonderful view.” he says. You are high up and have this amazing chessboard look ahead of you. Everything is cut to perfection and you have the bunkers to your right It’s a typical Peter Malkovich design with a Pebble…

Control: Because the soft urethane golf ball cavers produce more backspin through flight and upon landing, a soft golf ball casing means golfers have more control over their shots. Many of the latest golf balls released actually have reformulated covers designed specifically with control in mind. Feel: The feel a soft golf ball casing gives players usually refers to the way they command their short-game shots. Whether you’re hitting your wedges or putting on the greens, you want your clubs to feel like extensions of your hands, gently guiding the ball to its final destination. Playing a ball with a softer cover does just that.…

PICK OF THE MONTH SONY OPEN IN HAWAII WAIALAE COUNTRY CLUB, HONOLULU 14-17 JANUARY 2020 winner: Australian Cameron Smith waited until the 72nd hole to catch Brendan Steele and then made par to win a sudden-death playoff for his first individual title on the PGA Tour. ‘I just hung in there,’ Smith told Golf Channel, ‘and what do you know?’ Smith rallied from three strokes behind entering the final round and canned a 9-foot birdie putt at 18 to shoot a two-under 68 and force extra holes. At a waterlogged Waialae Country Club that absorbed a steady rain and required squeegees on the 18th green and preferred lies for the fourth straight round, Steele’s play was about as pretty as the weather, but it looked to be his day when…

Having been established in 1999,2020 should have been the year in which the Ernie Els & Fancourt Foundation celebrated its 21st anniversary but, for obvious reasons, those celebrations have been put on hold. And there is much to celebrate - over 21 years, hundreds of talented young SA golfers have benefited from the wide-ranging support of Ernie Els and Dr Hasso Plattner, owner of Fancourt. The Ernie Els Foundation was founded with the purpose of identifying and assisting young, talented individuals, in golf, predominantly from families of limited resources, and to give them educational assistance and playing opportunities to produce successful young leaders and develop their playing ability to its full potential. The foundation joined forces with the world-renowned Fancourt Hotel and Golf Estate in 2006 to establish the Ernie…

No one could have scripted a year ago what we were going to be facing in 2020. It’s pointless sugar-coating what we went through, as a whole. The year was a once- in-a-generation experience and changed the lives of so many around the world, and for a large chunk of those people it was for the worse. I can only speak about my experiences and what 2020 brought. This time last year I had set out my goals for January onwards and when I think back to how everything changed as the year unfolded, it’s incredible. At the start of 2020 I said I’d like to compete and find more consistency with my game. I achieved that, and at the end of February/beginning of March I was beaten in a…

To many South Africans, overseas visitors and returning ‘swallows’, Pinnacle Point Estate represents a bucket-list experience. While it’s hard to disagree with that sentiment, perhaps we should clarify something. ‘Bucket list’ suggests it’s to be ticked off and then one moves on - although exactly the opposite applies here. Whether you’ve left a few golf balls out on the course - or dare one say, misfired in the direction of the ocean - or managed to keep the bogeys and rings off your scorecard, the chances are that you will be looking to book your next round almost as soon as you’ve wiped the sheen off your forehead. Pinnacle Point is, quite simply, an experience which is an assault on your senses. Visually arresting with views stretching over ravines, cliffs…

A change of strategy helped Vicki Traut defend her South African Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship title in the Cape Winelands town of Robertson. She got off to a strong start with a two- over-par 74 and a four-shot lead but at eight over after the second round, her advantage had been cut to just one shot by a charging Nina Grey, who catapulted to second with a round of 74. Things did not go as smoothly for Traut as they did in 2019 - when the Erinvale golfer scored a five-shot victory in her debut at Selborne Park Golf Club. With six holes to play, the 2019 champion found herself trailing Grey and two-time former champion Vanessa Smith by a shot. ‘The first nine holes were so topsy-turvy and after the…

The final stretch of the most unpredictable year imaginable ended with two of our biggest LPGA Tour tournaments of 2020. As I wrote this at the beginning of December I was heading to the US Women’s Open, which was being played at The Champions Course in Houston. That was followed by the Race to the CME Globe final, in which the top 72 players from the 2020 moneylist were to compete for $1-million. I was the only South African in the field for that jackpot as we travelled to the US Women’s Open, having played 14 LPGA Tour events up to then, which included three top-10 finishes. It’s hard to believe that we have already reached the end of the year, considering that during the main part of the lockdown…

When I first arrived on Tour back in 2007 [he says, feeling like a Vietnam veteran] I was told that my first two to three years were ail about paying your school fees’. Hearing that always made me feel that after a few hard knocks, lip-outs and life lessons, there was meant to he a graduation party of sorts? Fourteen years down the road. I can say I was totally hoodwinked. This game has no idea who is holding the club which just launched a ball 320 yards over a cross-bunker, before flipping a wedge to three feet and ‘kicking in’ the birdie putt. Just ask Nienaber Schaper. Hojgaard, Valimaki, Higgo and the other players who are yet to be of legal drinking age in Vegas. Two moments stuck out…