Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2024 i Compleat Golfer

BRANDON STONE COLUMN It's hard for me to believe that it's been eight years since I went to the Olympics in Rio. I can remember the occasion like it was yesterday. There are so many memories that were made over that week. But I thought I'd share my absolute favourite. I arrived on the afternoon of the opening ceremony. I got to my room, quickly changed into my tracksuit and jumped on the bus. When we arrived at the stadium there were thousands upon thousands of people. I'd forgotten how many athletes and countries take part. Well, I guess it's all of them. When it came to our turn for the stadium lap, I was shaking from excitement. We walked through the curtain and bam - a jam-packed stadium, camera…

Golf continues to find itself something of a minor sport in the Olympic family. As does tennis. There's a certain resentment among the ‘smaller codes’ that players who compete weekly on their own circuits in events worth millions of dollars, are included into the Games. Imagine being a skateboarder, a sport climber, a fencer and attending an Olympics. Their medals won are priceless - does the same apply to golfers and tennis players? And that's the one argument. Without question, the main acts at any Olympics are the track and field athletes and the swimmers. Someone like sprinter Akani Simbine's four-year cycle is determined by less than 10 seconds. That's where his career is judged. The athletes and swimmers are the headline grabbers, whereas golfers and tennis players don't attract…

REINARD KILIAN RULES These days, with movable and changeable weights on clubs, you don't find lead tape that often any more. But at the recent Kit Kat Cash & Carry Pro-Am on the Sunshine Tour, lead tape did feature in an interesting equipment ruling. One of the players had some lead tape on the head of his driver, which is allowed in terms of the equipment rules. However, you are not allowed to change the playing characteristics of the club during the round such as moving weights, swapping the weights or in this case adding more lead tape. In this scenario, however, the tape was coming loose and although the player is allowed to stick it back on, the tape did not want to stay attached. If it comes loose…

GARY LEMKE COLUMN Some years ago I was introduced to the expression: ‘Golf is a game when you can start off as four complete strangers and four hours later end as four complete enemies,” Only speaking from personal experience, I found it to be true It was a corporate golf day - I won't reveal the course - and each fourball member had paid to be there. We played behind a group that included a professional who would be available to wait a bit and have a look at our swings, have a chat and then go back to his group ahead. All started wall, until one of the fourball put himself down for a five on the opening par four He actually made six, but it was going to…

For most of his life, Andrew Curlewis defined golf within the context of his father, Ivan, and the bond they've had through the game. Margate Country Club was like a second home to them. So when Ivan fell ill and was no longer a regular face at the club they both loved, Curlewis felt something shift deep within himself. ‘It just felt like the time was right to move on,’ he says of a period in his life where he closed the book on his professional career on the Sunshine Tour, regained his amateur status, and took up a position as the golf manager at Silver Lakes Golf Estate. ‘I think my move from the South Coast shocked everyone. I was the first one to say I'd never leave there.…

ANDY CAPOSTAGNO COLUMN A CORNER DEDICATED TO GOLF'S TRIERS The best that can be said of my game is that it is consistently inconsistent. I suspect I am not alone in this facet, particularly among my fellow high handicappers. We stand on the tee and face the target more in hope than expectation, but on our day we can par or birdie any hole on the course. The problem is that these Stableford point-gathering excursions are inevitably followed by a blackout at the next, no matter how simple the hole might be in the opinion of the wise men and women who set the stroke indices. It goes without saying that any hole becomes impossible if one of the shots in your repertoire sends the ball sideways. The remedy for…

2024 OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP It's the hope that gets you. Once the disappointment had worn off, although it's understandable that even now there are still ‘what ifs’, Thriston Lawrence will know that he gave it his all. Sport at elite level is all about margins and for Lawrence that came deep into the 2024 Open Championship's final round at an unforgiving Royal Troon. Enjoying a one-shot advantage over Xander Schauffele, the entire complexion of the South African's tournament, and the rest of the field's, changed on the home nine. Schauffele birdied holes 11, 13 and 14, and Lawrence dropped a shot at the 12th. Suddenly, he was two shots behind with four holes to play. That became three shots clear with two to play as the American birdied the 16th as…

Formerly known as the Modderfontein Dynamite Factory Club, it is located a few minutes off the highway in Edenvale, on the East Rand of Johannesburg. In the gold mining boom in the early 1900s, dynamite was primarily used to extract the gold-bearing rock. The area where the golf course can be found was the largest dynamite-producing factory, hence the original name of Dynamite Factory Club. The name Modderfontein comes from the river that runs through the area, which directly translated means ‘mud spring’. The course itself dates back to the mid-1930s and was opened by Bobby Locke upon completion by designer Arthur Tomsett. As with many courses of its age, several changes have been made to the layout through the years. The flowing parkland layout is located on a strongly…

Wedges are key to us ‘golf mortals’ mainly because of one thing - we tend to miss a lot of greens, more so the higher one's handicap. The wedge becomes key in helping to keep the high scores and rings off the scorecard. Like everything in the game, there's no instant fix to any problems you might have. Practice might not make perfect, but it helps. Recently PGA Tour pro JT Poston, ranked around 50 in the world, said: ‘If I'm hitting balls for an hour, I probably spend 20 to 25 minutes hitting wedge shots up to 130 yards. I hit a lot of these shots as I warm up. It's good for contact and tempo. You'll start developing a great feel for it.’ There's something called the one-third…

REPLAY Rose (36) was level with Stenson on 15 under par after 17 holes but the Swede bogeyed the last while Rose sank a birdie putt to win by two shots. The 2013 US Open champion hit a four-under-par 67 to win on 16 uunder. Open champion Stenson took silver with a 68, while American Matt Kuchar carded a 63 to claim bronze on 13 under. That felt better than anything I've ever won,’ said Rose. ‘It was the best tournament I've ever done. Hopefully we've shown Brazil what golf is about. I'm glad it was close. Not for my nerves, for golf.’ While several other high-profile golfers, men and women, had decided not to competete at the Olympics, Rose had relished the prospect of becoming an Olympian since the…

CAN YOU JUST SPEED UP PLAY! As we touched on last issue, golf.com conducted a survey of 3 800 amateur golfers asking them about their biggest peeves when it came to golf etiquette. The results were unsurprising. At the top of the list was slow play (65.1%), followed by poor course maintenance (17.5%), music on the course (7.9%), club throwing (6.4%), untucked shirts and dress-code violations (1.3%). Only 0.03% had no complaints at all. TWO HOLES-IN-ONE. WHAT ARE THE ODDS? Shades of Kim Jong-II perhaps, when the North Korean made 11 holes-in-one in his first-ever round of golf. We might never know about American Jack Wiebe. While playing with a work colleague, Wiebe teed off on the 9th hole, a par four into a blind green. While he looked for…

Standing on a driving range for hours hitting buckets of balls merely to tick a box is, for the most part, not the most effective method of self-improvement for a golfer's game. Instead, golfers need to practise with intent, developing routines on the range that build skills and confidence. Swing coaches normally provide golfers with these routines, including maintenance programmes to reinforce the work done on swing technique. However, where these are non-existent, there is an exercise which can greatly assist your skill acquisition if you commit to doing the hard yards on the range afterwards. The exercise may be common for elite golfers but won't harm a high handicapper wanting to improve their game. The first step is to get familiar with the distances you hit on each club…

SIGNATURE HOLE The downhill 15th is the signature hole, and while it is hotly contested by several other options, the stroke one holds the accolade of the hardest and prettiest hole on the course. Spanning a length of 427m. it is a mere 29m shorter than two of the par fives on the course. A nerve-racking drive can be expected with water running down the entire right-hand side of the fairway. As it is downhill you can expect a certain amount of run on the fairway, especially in the dry winter months From the fairway, anything from a 3-wood to a long-iron will be needed to reach the green in two. You will also need to favour the left side of the fairway to avoid the water as well as…

One of GolfRSA's primary objectives is to promote junior golf development by providing a strong national competitive platform where our rising talents can gain experience, improve their skills and test themselves at the highest level. The recent mid-year holidays were jam-packed with national events and what a treat to see the blossoming talent rise to the occasion. Let's celebrate our champions. Saving her best golf for the final round at the Gary Player Country Club, two-time Zimbabwe Junior Open champion Charlotte Millard fired a one-over-par 73 to clinch her national breakthrough on the GolfRSA junior circuit with a resounding three-shot victory at the Nomads SA Girls Championship, presented by Sun International. This is the one event I have wanted to win since I started playing competitive golf. It's a dream…

2023 winner: American ace Lilia Vu played a stunning final round to clinch the Women's British Open at Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey by six strokes. The 25-year-old Vu consolidated her lead at the start of the round, shooting six birdies to card a five-under-par 67 to finish 14 under. Vu and home favourite Charley Hull were embroiled in an arm wrestle going into the final round with a share of the lead and a one-stroke lead over Angel Yin. But the day belonged to the American, who took control of the round to claim her second Major of the year, adding to her Chevron Championship title from April. The American was the early pacesetter on Sunday, moving a shot clear of Hull courtesy of a birdie on the…

RYAN CAIRNS COLUMN In golf, one name towers above the rest in our generation. Born into a military home, and marred by the memory of war from the day he was given his name, by a father whose inner battles forged the toughest competitor the game has ever seen. The mere mention of his name evokes a sense of reverence and admiration, for he is not just a golfer, but a symbol of excellence and resilience. Despite his setbacks and struggles, there remains a glimmer of hope, in the belief that Tiger's final tale is yet to be written. Tiger Woods is more than a golfer; he is a phenomenon, a trailblazer who has forever changed the landscape of the sport. From his remarkable debut at The Masters in 1997…