One in a million

Somewhere among the mostly useless paraphernalia - pens, pocket knives, letter openers, green forks and the like – that I have accumulated over the years there is a one dollar note with the inscription: “To make a million you have to have the first one.”

Needless to say it has not increased a million-fold but it was a nice idea by the man who gave it to me. Perhaps I should fold it up and keep it in my wallet… but I digress.

It’s that time of the year again – Million Dollar time – when those privileged few of us will traipse up to Sun City to have ourselves a jolly good time hanging out with the pros and the rich and famous while occasionally watching some golf.

It’s a tough old job but, as I always sigh with a touch of resignation, someone’s got to do it.

Each year I am guaranteed to be asked a question about what is now the Nedbank Golf Challenge: “Which tournament do you rate as the best ever?”

The other favourite is whether there is a great golfer who has not been to Sun City, but the purpose of this column is to divine whether one tournament since 1981 – there have been 21 of them – has been unquestionably the best.

Was it the year Ian Woosnam, who would become more famous for his escapades in the casino, was dueling Nick Faldo in the last round for a winner-take-all one million dollars? That was in 1987 and Woosnam holed his second for an eagle two at the 17th. Talk about hitting the jackpot!

Perhaps it was 1986 when Mark McNulty made up five strokes in the final round to beat Lanny Wadkins – the man of whom it was said he would go for the flag if it was on the back of a crocodile in the middle of a swamp? The stunned American said he had been overwhelmed by the finest display of putting and chipping he had ever seen.

“Sparkles,” to use the name by which McNulty is known in the trade, had come from six strokes back at the halfway mark while the five-shot turnaround in the last round, to win, has been matched by Ray Floyd (1982) and Fulton Allem (1988).

There will be those who plump for 1983 when Seve Ballesteros – who confided that he had played the last four holes with a scuffed ball because had no new ones left and he was too proud to ask his playing partner David Graham if he could borrow one! – beat a stellar field by five strokes. Then again the Australian's parsimony was well-known so perhaps Seve was just too scared to ask if he might borrow a ball the pros don't pay for anyway!

A stellar field? Probably the best ever. Ballesteros, Zoeller, Faldo, Graham, Miller, Floyd, Trevino, Stadler, Price and Nelson; major winners all.

1998 wasn’t half bad either. That was the year Nick Price shut out Tiger Woods to the delirious delight of what has become one of the great gatherings in golf around the 18th green.

Woods, encouraged by the opportunity to have a photo shoot with the only black man on the circumference of the earth more famous than he, Nelson Mandela, added a special luster along with Price, Leonard, O’Meara. Westwood, Els, Langer, Parnevik, Furyk, Duval, Montgomerie and Watson, Tom.

Then there was 1993, when Nick Price holed his second shot at the first, on his way to setting the then record score of 24-under 264 or Ernie Els’ incredible play, especially in the rain on the Saturday, to improve the mark to 25 under in 1999.

The most eventful tournament was probably 1991 when John Daly, Ian Woosnam and Steve Elkington stripped off their shirts to sing “Wild Thing” at the party, and later Daly was seen being removed from the salon privé at two in the morning with his head lolling and a security guard at each point of the compass.

The next day he and Woosnam would race around the course to get their pounding heads out of the thumping sun with Daly actually playing a couple of shots one-handed and on the walk!

My day had been ruined long before. Edward Griffiths, the then sports editor of the Sunday Times, had written in his column “that there are over 40,000 thousand words in the English dictionary and only one of them, obscene, adequately describes the Million Dollar golf tournament” - the only problem was that I was the only representative of the Times left to face the music when the papers were delivered on Sunday morning.

As Lennon and McCartney wrote for Mary Hopkins, “those were the days my friend,” but for me the best tournament was the first.

Featuring Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller and Seve Ballesteros playing for a prize fund of $1-million and a winner’s cheque of $500,000 it ended with the latter two playing off for nine holes.

Now Seve possessed the kind of electric personality that could have turned shaving into a major television sport while Miller was the ultimate American hero. They went back to the 16th tee three times and each time the crowd ran back to follow the action.

When they matched twos on the first play-off hole people were falling about and doing somersaults and there was a wild exuberance I have never again experienced on a golf course.

To modify the proverb, all’s well that starts well. Miller and Seve dueling in the sun is what turned the million dollar into a South African institution. A little brash, somewhat indecent, but never dry. May it ever be so.