Wednesday, January 14, 1998

TWO major up-coming events on the national calendar are the SAOpen and Nashua Wild Coast Sun Challenge.

A star-studded field including defending champion Vijay Singh, Bernhard Langer, David Frost, Frank Nobilo and home-grown heroes Retief Goosen, Wayne Westner, Mark McNulty, Tony Jonstone and superstar Ernie Els will tee it up in the R3,75-million SAOpen at Durban Country Club from February 5 to 8.

Els, currently ranked third in the world, will be returning to South Africa for the event after defending his Johnnie Walker Classic Title later this month.

He will lead the field alongside Langer, a two-time Masters champion and one of 1997's most successful players after winning five major events, including the Italian, Czech and B&H International Open tournaments and the German Masters last year. This latest string of wins takes his career total to 50.

New Zealander Nobilo, a first time US tour winner in 1997, topped last year's record books for the best sand saves.

The SA Open, sponsored by Mercedes Benz and Vodacom, also drew excellent support from the top 100 players in Europe and South Africa last year and further high profile names are expected to be confirmed closer to the event.

Challenge

This year's Nashua Wild Coast Sun Challenge will take place from January 29 to February 1. A field of 90 top professionals, both local and international, will battle it out over four days for the R500 000 purse.

The pro-am tournament on January 26 and 27 will precede the challenge, giving amateurs a chance to test their skills against the professionals over the picturesque Wild Coast Sun Country Club.

The Challenge consists of an invitational pro-am on January 29 and 30 with the amateurs playing a 36-hole betterball competition and the pros a 72-hole strokeplay event. The amateurs give way to the professionals on Saturday and Sunday.

Confirmed players for the event to date are South African stars Wayne Westner and Fulton Allem, American Jim Thorpe and defending champion Mark McNulty.

Tournaments

Andrew Brookes, son of ELGC pro Alan, who is visiting family in Australia over the next three weeks, will be teeing off in the Stutterheim Open on Sunday.

The defending champion, he will be playing with Uncle John Sawyer -- Uncle John being the brother of mom, Margie.

The A division (0 to 9) championships will be played this Sunday and the B (10-16) and C (17-30) next Sunday.

* Looking ahead, mark this one in your diary now -- the Alex Classic on Sunday, February 8.

This is the club's grand fund-raising event of the year for charities under the aegis of the Hebrew Order of David.

Tournament convenor Gerald Spilkin says that notwithstanding recent adverse publicity surrounding the East London Child Welfare Society, his committee believed a need still existed to provide assistance to those less fortunate and that should not be prejudiced.

Consequently, half of the proceeds raised at the golf day will go to Child Welfare and the balance to other charities the order supports.

The compeititon is an 18-hole bb Stableford, morning or afternoon, with the promise of an excellent array of prizes, on-course refreshments and a fun day.

Please note entries close on February 3 and you are asked to get your entry in to Jenny or Mel at Alex.

Please note, too, the Alex number has changed from 46-3646 to 736-3646.

Sa vets

East London will play host to two national tournaments this year.

The SA U23 tournament at West Bank from May 25 to 29 is on the official BGU fixture list, but now comes news the SA Vets strokeplay championships will be played at East London from August 17 to 20.

That exciting bit of news comes from the president of Border Vets, Denzil Gouws, who also noted the SA Vets inter-provincial tournament will be played at Kyalami CC on the outskirts of Johannesburg from April 19 to 23.

In order to select the Border side for the IP, four trials, all at the East London GC, have been arranged for January 25, February 1 (which will also double as Border Vets' next social outing), February 22 and March 15.

Denzil says 21 players have been asked to play in the trials and selection will be based on stroke averages and participation.

Players unable to play in all the trials are asked to submit club medal scores and BGU event scores.

The Border team will be announced at the Vets tournament in Stutterheim on March 22.

Gonubie

New Gonubie women's president Mary Jones sent me the names of their new office-bearers following their agm in December, but as this column had already closed down this is the first opportunity I have had to publish them.

The new committee is: Jones, president; Vicki Genlloud, captain; Carrol Ledingham, vice-captain; Dawn Morsink, secretary-treasurer.

Mary tells me Howard Weston has donated three cups in memory of his late wife, Joan, and the results of the Joan Weston floating trophy were:

A section: Ledingham and Genlloud tie first; 3 Audrey Jarvis. B:1 Ann Mackay; 2 Morsink; 3 Peggy Southey. C:1 Joanne Nel; 2 Jones; 3 Alli Norman.

* Mention of Gonubie reminds me I played nine holes there last week with former Dispatch MD Terry Briceland, who has forsaken the squash court and hobie cats for the more nobler sport of golf. I hear on the grapevine he is rapidly acquiring all the accoutrements which will readily identify him as a genuine golf 'nut'.

Terry's potential aside, I was most impressed with the work done on some of the tee boxes at Gonubie. Those at the third, sixth and 18th particularly caught my eye.

They are most attractive and certainly enhance the appearance of the teeing ground -- a complementary pat on the back for whoever was responsible for this novel development.

New year

A couple of New Year resolutions missing from last week's list:

1. I will not talk, or WHISPER, when other players are about to play a shot or putt;

2. I will try not to engage in my idiosyncrasy of pulling my shirt collar up and down -- up to protect my neck from the sun;

3. I will try to persuade oft playing partner Ossie Schoof to put his scissors away, scissors he has threatened to use to cut my shirt collars off!

4. If I am playing with poker pal Louis Groenewald I will wear a hard hat -- a reference to Louis 'braining' Trevor Rusteberg on the back of the head with a full-blooded fairway wood over the Christmas season that dropped Trevor like a lumberjack's tree and left him bleeding profusely.

I know Louis will not mind me taking the 'mickey' out of him here, but in his defence let me say never have I known a player so upset about injuring another. "I thought I'd killed him" Louis said open-eyed afterwards.

But Peter Saffy, another member of the impregnable quadrilaterial made up by Barry Arnold, was more philosophical. "C'mon, Trevor," he said, "you got raked worse than that in the days when you used to play rugby for Hams against Cambridge!

Country districts

Big burly 'copper' from Barkly East se wereld, former Border golfer Magnus Buys, will captain the Border Country Districts team to play in the SACountry Districts tournament in Kroonstad from April 20 to 24.

The other team members are Lourens von Solms (Kei Mouth), Willie Nienaber (Barkly East), Doug Gradwell (King William's Town), Dawie du Toit (Barkly), Sean Baillie (Queenstown, elder brother of Border golfer Andrew), Wayne Bennett (Queenstown), and Andre Gouws (Burgersdorp).

Douglas Cossie (Cathcart) and Jan Joubert (Queenstown) are the reserves and the side will be managed by King eager beaver Mike Tassell.

Tailpiece

Now I know why the Bok cricketers fared so badly in the second innings of the second Test in Sydney -- they're playing too much golf and shooting low scores!

US tour faces legal action from player with leg injury

CARLSBAD (California) -- Phil Mickelson's win in the Mercedes Championships at the weekend was more than a personal triumph. It was a victory for the US PGA tour.

Casey Martin's ride to victory on the subsidiary Nike tour could be much more than a personal triumph. It could be the centerpiece of a legal battle to decide who controls professional golf.

All the wheeling and dealing that will bring three new World Golf Championships and enormous increases in prize money next year seemed to pay off at La Costa Resort and Spa.

And commissioner Tim Finchem seems to be making good on his promise for more intense competition as players jockey for high world rankings to qualify for big-money events in 1999.

And any doubts about the ability of 'Tiger' Woods and the PGA tour to improve on last year's significant step toward expanding the sport's popularity were addressed in a final-round shoot-out at the Mercedes on Sunday.

Woods again had a great closing round, electrifying the gallery with a 64. But there was Mickelson responding with a 68 for a one-stroke victory over Woods and Mark O'Meara.

"I had a mind set going into the day," Mickelson said. "Do whatever it takes."

It seems as if that attitude is contagious.

A quick look at the leaderboard shows that a couple of compelling themes from last year carried over into 1998: Youth has made its presence felt and a slew of players have improved in response to Woods.

Six of the top-10 finishers on Sunday -- Mickelson, Woods, Stewart Cink, Gabriel Hjertstedt, David Duval and Ernie Els -- are under 30 years old.

And the other four contenders were veterans making a loud statement that their generation is not about to roll over. O'Meara, Nick Price and John Cook have all passed 40 and Mark Calcavecchia will be 38 this year.

This is the last time the Mercedes will be played at La Costa. Next year the season-opening event moves to Hawaii so it can be televised during prime time in many parts of the mainland.

La Costa then will become the venue for the Andersen Consulting World Match Play Championship next February. That tournament will be limited to the top 64 players in the world.

The PGA tour's excellent season-opener came during the same week Martin was winning a Nike tour event while riding a cart.

Martin, who has a degenerative muscle disease affecting circulation in his right leg, played in the Florida tournament after obtaining a temporary injunction allowing him to use a cart.

A hearing on February 2 on whether to make the injunction permanent will determine more than Martin's ability to play for money. It will define the limits of the PGA tour to run the pro game.

The tour has won all anti-trust challenges so far and Finchem has exploited those victories to restrict player movement, negotiate TV deals and create new events that will more than double prize money the next few years.

Though Martin's case is not an anti-trust suit, the PGA tour clearly sees it as a referendum on who controls golf -- the tour or the courts.

The PGA tour contends golfers are athletes and walking the course is a skill needed to compete at the highest level.

"As a friend, I'd love to see him get a cart," Woods, who played with Martin at Stanford University, said on Sunday. "But from a playing standpoint, is it an advantage? It probably is."

Mark O'Meara, a player representative on the PGA tour policy board, also empathised with Martin, but did not champion his cause.

"It's a tough call," O'Meara said. "And the public is probably on his side. But we are only trying to do the right thing."

It is perhaps emblematic of the problems that come with success that the Martin issue should arise at a time when golf is on such a roll. Sometimes big money brings big problems, as the team sports have found out.

The public's perception of how the Martin case is handled will be a delicate -- and important -- matter for the PGA tour and its continued growth. -- Sapa-AP

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