Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 i Compleat Golfer

Seeing parents take their boys and girls to tournaments is incredible. I remember being that young hoy myself, seeing some of my golfing heroes and being in complete amazement and awe of them In early May, at the British Masters, I found myself taking in a spectator’s perspective of tournament golf on the Friday at The Belfry. Admittedly, it did feel weird, but listening to all the chatter from that side of the ropes was stimulating and somewhat enlightening. It also allowed me to have some fun trying to sum up those who actually watch golf. I wouldn’t typically walk around the course after playing. Let me rephrase that. I never walk the course after a round, but I’d had an early tee time that Friday and shot 75 to…

Visitors to Clovelly Country Club today will happen upon a verdant, busy golf course that forms part of a lively, welcoming club. Tucked within the sand dunes that frame the small community of Fish Hoek, south of Cape Town, the clubhouse offers stunning views down the valley to the sea below. First impressions may be that this is an idyllic position for a golf course, yet the history of the club, dating back to the 1920s, tells a different story. The land on which the club sits was originally part of the Klein Tuin farm, which, due to a somewhat irregular supply of water, comprised not much more than barren sand dunes adorned with the odd tuft of grass. In 1920, the farm was sold to Cape Estates Ltd and…

Considering golf started in the 16th century, irons were comparatively late developers in terms of truly revolutionary changes. There was a natural progression from wooden clubs to those made of iron Wooden clubs had shafts of ash or hazel with the clubheads made from tougher wood like apple, holly beech or pear. The clubhead would be connected to the shaft with a splint and then bound with a leather strap. Their shape determined their function and they went by the romantic names of grassed drivers, spoons, niblicks and a putting cleek. But they were expensive due to the time and effort that went into making them and club-makers experimented with different materials on the clubface, such as leather, metal, bone fragments and other materials to increase distance and prevent breakage…

Things have been rather busy recently and I’ve done a lot of travelling within the United States. After the Chevron Championship at the beginning of April we had a week off. I was going to stay on the west coast because that would have made the trip to the next tournament, the Lotte Championship at Hoakalei Country Club in Hawaii, a little easier. But, having been on the road for seven weeks, I really felt I needed to go home to Florida to hit the reset button. It is amazing what a week of being in your own home comforts and sleeping in your own bed can do to re-energise you. After six days at home, I flew to Hawaii, which was now a 10-hour flight. My original schedule did…

The government notwithstanding, life is returning to normal. Restaurants and rugby grounds are beginning to fill up and at the unassuming golf course I call home, a few Covid protocols are being relaxed. We have rakes at the bunkers for the first time in two years and those clever little devices for lifting the ball out of the hole without touching the flagstick have disappeared. This presents something of a problem for me, as my knees and back have to combine to get me a foot lower to the ground than before. Sometimes I have to kneel. Gone, too, is that sinister gathering of masked people on the 1st tee. At the height of restrictions, technically you had to wear your mask the whole way around, but what really happened…

Dalys having a hoot Hooters has signed John Daly to a more official deal, but John Daly II. aka Little John Daly, has been signed by Hooters to a name, image and likeness deal. This marks the first NIL deal for Hooters and for Little John, who is at the University of Arkansas. Little John and Big John will promote the Hooters brand through marketing activities. Big John, who has been known to frequent Hooters and even sell merchandise and sign autographs from a Hooters parking lot during Masters week, will now wear Hooters apparel and will use a Hooters orange golf bag with a retro logo on the PGA Tour Champions. Shooting his age In Florida, 74-year-old Robert Levine was arrested for attempted first-degree murder for shooting 64-year-old Herbert…

Throughout the year Brandon Stone is counting down, from 12 to one, the most enjoyable experiences he’s had with a playing partner on the golf course. 8 Bryson DaChaznbeau There are few more polarising golfers on the planet than Bryson DeChambeau Everyone seems to know him as ‘the mad scientist’. He has been praised and he has been criticised. Everyone seems to have a view and opinion of Bryson, even if they haven’t come within a hundred metres of him in real life. That’s because he does things differently to everyone else. Now, he’s definitely not Mr Perfect, and has made a few questionable and controversial statements in the past few years. But every time I’ve been out with him on the golf course I’ve enjoyed myself immensely. Everyone seems…

As Tristen Strydom looks out at the sea and reflects on his past Sunshine Tour season, his words regarding his first victory, at the Tour Championship, are telling. ‘It was the right time and place, ’ he said of his emphatic win at Serengeti Estate in the seasonending tournament. It marked the first Sunshine Tour title for a golfer who made four trips to the Sunshine Tour Qualifying School, and who won it at his last attempt. It was a breakthrough moment for one of South Africa’s top amateurs who had struggled to find his feet in the professional ranks since 2017. And then it just all came together at Serengeti. ‘It’s obviously very satisfying because for a long time I haven’t been my normal self in terms of being…

The RBC Heritage tournament on the PGA Tour is famous for usually being the week after The Masters, its iconic lighthouse on the 18th and the tartan jacket the winner receives. Another feature of the course is the many trees and the moss that tends to grow in their overhanging branches. In previous years golf balls have been lost in the trees as they become stuck in them. A similar scenario played out this year when one of Dylan Frittelli’s approach shots was slightly off-line and the ball became lodged in a tree next to the green. With the ball just above head height, Frittelli had to improvise a stroke to get his club on the ball, and he managed to play the ball on to the green. Unfortunately for…

The par-four 4th may read only 338m on the scorecard (from the tips), but it remains one of the most challenging holes on the course and it fully merits its stroke rating of seven. There are two main reasons for this, explains general manager Paul Stoner ‘Firstly, there is out of bounds running all the wav up the left side of the hole, so anything tugged to the left is asking for trouble, he says. Accordingly, most players favour the right side of the narrow fairway and even the right rough, which can result in tree trouble and a blocked line to the green There’s also a pesky bunker on the right side that catches many tee shots. The second reason is that approach shots need to clear a water…

Bertie Steenkamp added the South African Mid-Amateur Championship to his two Golf RSA Club Champion of Champions titles, reminding us that it is not how often you play, but how well you play when you get the chance. The 39-year-old from Upington doesn’t get to play in too many big events, due to the onerous travel requirements from the Northern Cape, but he made it count in his first attempt at the Mid-Amateur Championship. Rounds of 66, 70 and 71 at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington’s West Course enabled him to claim a wire-to-wire win, prevailing by three shots over former two-time champion Derek Scullard. ‘I’m so happy to win, because this is a big tournament with really good players, ’ said Steenkamp. ‘As it was my first time at this…

US OPEN 16-19 JUNE 2021 revisited: Jon Rahm became the first US Open champion from Spain when he finished with two brilliant birdies to outlast South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen by one stroke at Torrey Pines. Rahm dedicated the victory to his late compatriot Seve Ballesteros, who put Spain on the golfing map by winning five Majors before dying of brain cancer at age 54. ‘This is for Seve. I know he wanted to win this one most of all, ’ said Rahm, his voice cracking with emotion. He edged Oosthuizen in a wild battle of attrition that turned into a two-man race as several contenders came unstuck on the difficult back nine. Rahm was the only serious contender to avoid a bogey on the inward half, and he timed his…

This is what Major championship golf is all about This is why money can’t buy a Green Jacket, a Claret Jug, a US Open trophy or a Wanamaker Trophy. Those who turned their back on a $225-million prize pot for the LIV Golf Series of eight 54-man tournaments with no cutline would make the same decision all over again. Professional golfers the world over will attest to the pressures that come with having to make a par to stay in an event for the final two rounds. Others who are at a Tour qualifying school or Monday qualifying speak of the pressure of sinking a three-footer to progress. The hole shrinks to the size of a pea, the heart rate spikes to nearly 200 beats per minute. Those who have…

There have been some surprise names engraved on the famous US Open trophy down the years. Such as amateur Francis Ouimet, who claimed a playoff victory in 1913 over the two best professional golfers in the game at the time, Englishmen Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. The winner hasn’t often sent golf’s aficionados scratching through their list of Who’s Who in the World of Golf. South Africa’s Gary Player has won the Major once, while Ernie Els and Retief Goosen have each won it twice. None of those wins registered a shock on the sport’s Richter Scale. As you might expect, world No 1s and former world No 1s have done well. The course set-up is always brutally tough, so over 72 holes you’d expect the best golfers in the…

Politics and sport. Like it or not they co-exist, one influenced by the other. It has forever been thus. Back in the late 1980s the anti-apartheid campaigner Sam Ramsamy sat me down in his London apartment and explained why spoil was being targeted as part of the international community’s fight against the National Party’s segregation policies No normal sport in an abnormal society’ he said, aligning with the nonwhite Sacos mantra In 1988 South Africa had made the decision that if it couldnt go to the world sports arena, it would bring the world’s sport to South Africa. Rebel tours’ were organised, with big money paid to those sportsmen who would defy the international Outcry and play in front of mainly white crowds in South African stadiums. In boxing. Gerrie…

You get the big dogs, the drivers. That’s literally a flexing of the muscles off the tee. See how far you can hit the ball, hopefully down the middle. Then, at the other end of the scale you get the putters. Not quite as sexy, but just as important. Remember, a 280m drive counts as much as a three-foot putt. The inbetweeners are what get us from fairway to green – and on the short holes from tee to green – and they make up most of what’s in your bag. Hit your irons well and you’ll score well. The talk at the 19th hole might all be about the booming drive on the par-five 10th, or the 30-footer putt that snaked in at the 4th, but it’s how you…

Ernie Els may someday win a Samsonite full of Majors and half of Johannesburg besides, but he’ll never forget his first, the one he won, kicked away, had gift wrapped for him, lost forever and finally just plain wore out. Said Curtis Strange of ELs last week, ‘I think I just played with the next god.’ It must be true, for who else but a god could win a US Open after playing most of his approach shots out of wheat fields, leaving his brain at the hotel and starting a Monday playoff bogey, triple-bogey? South Africa’s Els did all of these things and yet still beat America’s Loren Roberts and Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie in a three-way playoff to win at Oakmont. The end had a feeling of greatness to…

Some time ago, Compteat Golfer ran a feature about a fictional character named Johnny Parr, who finished every tournament on the PGA Tour in level par. It was concluded that while Parr made a decent amount of cash for the season, he would not have done enough to keep his card for the following year – unless the US Open had one of its mean and nasty years where the winning score was over or near to par. Since the turn of the century, level par would have been good enough to win five US Opens, one Masters and an Open Championship, with a further two US Opens going to playoffs after the winning score was even par. In women’s Majors, players would need to go into red numbers to…