Getting involved with winners

Ernie Els and Retief Goosen’s marvelous victory in the EMC World Cup held at the Taiheiyo club in Gotemba City, Japan has confirmed South Africa’s status as one of the world’s foremost golfing nations.

South Africa can, through Bobby Locke, Gary Player, Els and Goosen, lay claim to 16 major titles while the win in the World Cup was our fourth – an amazing achievement for a country that has a golfing population smaller than that of some American states.

We have tradition, we have sustained achievement and we have in Els and Goosen two of the world’s best and most visible players.

It is a situation that makes the inability of the South African Open to attract a sponsor even harder to understand.

Here you have the world’s second oldest championship featuring a field with recognised world stars, attracting a quantifiable world television audience and this is not enough to seduce the marketing men.

Of course there are problems – not the least being the reluctance of a sponsors to attach their names to an event that is ‘the’ SA Open rather than an out-and-out vehicle for their name.

Then there is the falling value of the Rand for an event that comes with a sterling or dollar price, while it has to be said that getting involved with the dinosaurs of the SA Golf Assocation, an organisation with not even the slightest grasp of basic promotion, has been know to be a turn-off to prospective backers.

All the more reason for my contention that the SA Open golf championship should be supported by government through the kind offices of Ngconde Balfour and his ministry of sport. Additional support should, in fact must, come from the provincial tourism organisations where the SA Open is being held.

Unlike the Olympics and the World Cup of soccer, which require enormously expensive bids with no guarantee of success, the SA Open is “ours”. It will take place, it will be presented each year and while it is part of the European Tour it will come with a significant television footprint.

Government could ensure its continued existence as a relevant South African event by committing a fraction of the money that was thrown at the Olympic and World Cup soccer bids.

At the very least it will be a chance to be associated with a sport that is in the midst of a worldwide boom and with winners such as Els and Goosen who at the weekend won South Africa’s fourth World Cup.

Although the trophy these days is a Greek vase rather than the golden Canada Cup that used to be awarded to the winners, Els became the first to be involved in two South African victories.

He won with Wayne Westner at Erinvale in the Cape in 1996 and now again with his teenage friend and opponent Goosen.

The format of the tournament has also changed to provide more of a partnership between the two contestants. Whereas South Africa’s first three wins were achieved with both team members completing four rounds of strokeplay, Els and Goosen had to play foursomes and better ball on alternate days; thus eliminating an individual winner.

Details of South Africa’s other World Cup victories are as follows:

1965

Club de Campo, Madrid Spain

571 - South Africa (G Player 281, H Henning 290)

579 - Spain (R Sota 285, A Miguel 294)

582 - USA (J Nicklaus 284, T Lema 298)

Individual:

281 - Gary Player (SA)70 69 68 74

284 - Jack Nicklaus (USA) 71 72 71 70

285 - Ramon Sota (Spain) 70 73 70 72

286 - Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez (Puerto Rico) 71 75 70 70, Miguel Sala (Columbia) 70 73 73 70

1974

Lagunita, Caracas Venezuela

554 – South Africa (B Cole 271, D Hayes 283)

559 – Japan (M Ozaki 276, I Aoki 283)

563 – USA (H Irwin 278, L Trevino 285)

Individual:

271 – Bobby Cole (SA) 66 70 67 68

276 – Masashi Ozaki (Japan) 67 68 70 71

278 – Hale Irwin (USA) 73 69 68 68

283 – Lu Liang-Huan (Rep of China) 72 70 70 71, Kuo Chie-Hsiung (Rep of China) 71 71 73 68, Dale Hayes (SA) 71 68 72 72, Isao Aoki (Japan) 70 70 70 73.

1996

Erinvale, Somerset West South Africa

547 - South Africa (E Els 272, W Westner 275)

565 - USA (T Lehman 283, S Jones 282)

566 - Scotland (A Coltart 285, P Lawrie 281)

Individual:

272 - Ernie Els (SA) 68 72 65 67

275 - Wayne Westner 68 72 65 70

280 - Bernhard Langer (Germany) 71 68 72 69

281 - Ian Woosnam (Wales) 70 73 67 71; Paul Lawrie (Scotland) 69 70 70 72.