Hayes and ‘Hutch’ strike the right note

There wasn’t much to the Nelson Mandela Charity Invitational at Pecanwood…just a couple of old pros, including Gary Player of course, a couple of haphazardly selected current professionals, a couple of rich guys, a couple of celebs from other sports and one or two who snuck in because of the jobs they do.

Normally I would have been completely disinterested in the event. I know it was for a good cause and all that but, hey, I would rather play golf myself than watch the like of Barry Richards, Naas Botha and Alan Donald show that sheer class in one sport does not necessarily translate to another.

Yet I found myself quite enjoying the television broadcast because Denis Hutchinson and Dale Hayes struck the perfect chord in their commentary.

Normally an event such as one – witness the Dimension Data Pro-am at Sun City – can be quite dull with far too little action from really good players to grab one’s unstinting attention – although I have to say that I would rather watch Nick Price walk to the next tee than some of the other lot play.

What made the Nelson Mandela Invitational was the way Hutchinson and Hayes injected additional discussion points. Here were two guys, both with substantial golf achievements to boast about, just chatting about the golf. They could have been right there in the living room, sipping a beer (sorry, Coke in the case of Haysie and Bells in the case of Hutchie) and having a natter about golf.

Remember this was not a full-scale outside broadcast so Dennis and Dale would not have been provided with a stream of information from the course. Full marks also to the director of the broadcast who did not, as so often at the Dimension Data, make as though the amateurs were not there.

It helped, of course, that some of the amateurs were famous in their own right but I’m sure that like me you quite enjoyed seeing some other awkward and rickety swings being dissected by the cameras.

Not the shaky though. Judging by some of the scores, some of the “ammies” were either pretty handy or they were ringing much better! I trust the handicappers at their clubs were watching.