Golf ace Westner’s death stuns residents
TWO-time European Tour winner and former World Cup of Golf champion Wayne Westner was well-liked in the seaside town of Pennington on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast.
So when the news broke that he had forced his way into his home and shot himself in front of his wife, the community was rocked.
The 55-year-old former professional golfer died from a gunshot wound to the head.
“What a lekker oke,” a fellow golfer at the Lynton Golf Academy in Pennington, who preferred to be called only by his first name, Neil, said.
Neil played many a round of golf with Westner over the past three years and said he could not have met a nicer person. “This place will never be the same,” he said.
“Every day, he [Westner] would be here in the sun, spending the whole day on the range teaching golf to people who came from as far as England and Ireland.”
Westner, who lived and taught golf in Ireland for almost a decade, is best known for his 1996 World Cup of Golf win with Ernie Els.
He also won the SA Open twice, and 12 other events across the globe during his five-year career. He retired in 1998 due to injury. “He was like a resident professional, a go-to guy when you needed anything golf-related,” Neil said.
“He did some coaching and played a lot.
“He was famous here as the guy who invented his own swinging machine. He lived golf.”
Neil said Westner and his wife, who ran a beauty salon, had moved to Pennington three years ago.
Coffee shop manager Tilly, who also did not want to give her surname, said residents were shattered.
“No, he [Westner] did not have a big heart, he had an extra large heart,” she said. “He was a deep thinker. “The staff all around here knew him and he interacted well and respectfully with everyone.”
An inquest docket has been opened.