Right, let’s get the embarrassing stuff out of the way first up: on a cool, benign morning at River Club, Gareth Tindall, the Sunshine Tour’s commissioner (and more pertinently, reigning champion at River Club) and I got murdered by Shaun Bartlett and Roland Schoeman, a seven and six defeat a brutal lesson. That Roland claimed a 16 handicap, and proceeded to turn level and comfortably break 80 for his round, was of no relevance to the game whatsoever...

But if the golf offered scant reward, then the company more than compensated. The departure of Joel Santana meant plenty of football talk, with Bartlett only too happy to oblige (in between regular reminders that he’d once won Premier League goal of the season); there was also much swimming discussion, particularly on the back of Roland’s defeat of Cameron van der Burgh in Pietermaritzburg over the weekend. Unsurprisingly, however, it was golf that took centre stage, with today’s Nedbank Golf Challenge field announcement generating much debate.

It’s an open secret that the South African Open at Pearl Valley will be a far more muted affair than last year, given Dubai’s financial distress, and the expected focus on the up and coming players headlining the Open field is an understandable response to the missing big names, who no longer have extravagant appearance fees to lure them to the tournament. It’ll still be a strong event, though, with some great golf on the horizon; Sun City finds itself in a similar position in 2009.

Sunday night at the Nedbank Golf Challenge has traditionally seen a mad rush to the Pilanesburg airport, players desperate to catch late flights to America to make Tiger’s charity tournament the following week. The good news is that the rush has been avoided this year; the bad news is that Tiger has shifted his tournament forward by a week, which means that expected stars like Kenny Perry and Jim Furyk have had to tender apologies in favour of a trip to California for the Striped One’s fundraiser.

Throw in the number of top players who live in America, and the onus on so many of the world’s leading golfers to be fitted with new clubs before January so as to be compliant with new PGA Tour rules concerning grooves on clubs, and luring star power to South Africa was always going to be difficult. Given that, the field assembled for 2009 has its merits, and a spectator pilgrimage to the Gary Player Country Club has every chance of producing another superb celebration of golf.

Henrik Stenson is back as defending champion, Richard Sterne plays as Sunshine Tour Order of Merit winner, and two-time Major winner Angel Cabrera is firmly amongst the favourites. Robert Karlsson, winner of the European Oder of Merit two years ago, is back, Robert Allenby waves the Australian flag, and Luke Donald makes another visit to a country and a tournament where he’s now very much a regular. Throw in Retief Goosen and Tim Clark, so breathtaking at the Presidents Cup, and you have a large dose of credibility loaded to the tournament.

Of the less immediately familiar golfers, Hunter Mahan was part of last year’s Ryder Cup and this year’s Presidents Cup teams for the United States; Englishman Ross Fisher had the best combined average score over this year’s four Majors, and is a good bet for a key role in next year’s Ryder Cup; and Nick Watney finished twelfth in the FedEx Cup, won the Buick, and climbed into the world’s top 30 from relative oblivion. It’s the final golfer who’s the most exciting inclusion, though — 20-year-old Rory McIlroy, the Northern Irish hobbit lookalike who may well arrive in South Africa with the inaugural Dubai World Championship title to his name.

There’s genuine talent in the field, then, even if some of the regular stars won’t be playing this year; and with the draw for a minor football tournament taking place in Cape Town on the Friday of the Nedbank Golf Challenge, there’ll be competition for attention. But the tournament is a resilient beast, and 28 years on, Sun City will still be well worth a visit. Seeing McIlroy alone is reason to go — and in what’s shaping up as the summer of young guns, having Tiger’s heir apparent headlining the South African season sets us up for some breathtaking golf.

  • Predicting sports results is guesswork masquerading as science, and not something I usually put money towards. But this month I’m playing with R1 000 with Great Odds, as part of the sports betting site’s celebrity challenge: along with Corne Krige, Tank Lanning, Kevin McCallum, Nick Feinberg, Darren Scott, Seth Rotherham and Kurt Darren, we’re playing for charity, our earnings at the end of the month going to a charity of choice (in my case, the JAG Foundation). But there’s also R10 000 to said charity for whoever gets the most votes, so to help me nail the charity cash — and give you the chance to win a R1 000 Canterbury hamper — nip on over to the charity challenge site, and cast a vote in my direction. Only if you want to help the poor, tired, hungry little children, of course...

  • Contact Dan at dan@metropolis.co.za


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