Teed-off with old way, golf tees up new help for talent

MAWONGA Nomwa will tell you that South African golf development had to find a better way.

The Soweto golfer was South Africa’s first post-1994 black professional who looked headed for stardom. He had talent and he finished 39th on the Sunshine Tour money list in his rookie season. Golf development then was about throwing money at a player like Nomwa, and hoping he knew how to handle it. He didn’t.

Golf development also went through a phase of taking poor children to tournaments, giving them coaching with top pros and then sending them home again. There was no follow through in a game all about follow through.

But it had to go this way for South African golf to realise what doesn’t work and get closer to what the Sunshine Tour unveiled this past week: its most ambitious golf development programme yet — the Gary Player Class of 2017.

With Player in attendance, 32 previously disadvantaged professionals were introduced as the first to go through this programme. They were selected based on their performances on tour over the past 18 months, which is already a merit-based system. They will receive free access to practice facilities at the World of Golf as well as free coaching and mentoring in all areas of the game, from technical, fitness and nutrition, and mental coaching, to how to handle the business side of professional golf and creating their own brand.

There are also playing opportunities that have been created on the main Sunshine Tour, the Big Easy Tour and IGT Tour for emerging professionals, and the MENA Tour in North Africa and the Middle East. Transport to these events will be paid for, which is often cited by these pros as a major stumbling block.

So why is this different to any other golf development programme? Perhaps because its focus is as much on social improvement as it is on skills improvement.

The South African Golf Development Board pioneered this way of thinking by placing a focus on its coaches knowing the names of the children’s school principals and making sure the academics of the young golfers were up to scratch.

“This is a social programme, not a development programme,” says Selwyn Nathan, executive director of the Sunshine Tour, who has made it his priority to develop a workable solution to effective golf development.

“All the previous attempts created donor fatigue because there was no proper management of these players. This one has the infrastructure to make it work,” says Nathan.

Theo Manyama, South Africa’s rules official, will oversee this group of players. The 73-year-old Manyama was a professional in the days when he could only access a golf club to practise on Christmas Day. He has seen several development initiatives come and go and even he believes this could be the first major success.

“You can’t just sponsor individual golfers. You need to give them access to gyms, proper coaching, club-fitting, practice facilities and everything a professional needs. It’s not about the money. It’s about a black professional standing on the tee in a major summer tournament feeling like he can win because of the training and opportunities a programme like this has given him.”