Local golfer aims high
Born and bred in Port Alfred, Wian van Aswegen is establishing himself in the sport of golf and is involved in many golfing
Van activities.’ Aswegen s potential was discovered at a tender age. He told TotT how it all started and how his parents pushed him to become the golfer that he is today.
“Golf started for me with watching it on TV with my dad. I began by hitting plastic golf clubs until my parents bought me a few real clubs when I turned five. Since then I have always loved the sport and enjoyed working hard at it,” he said.
“I always competed against people much older than me, and the fact that I could keep up and sometimes beat them gave me muchneeded self-belief.”
Van Aswegen represented Eastern Province for about 10 years, from the age of eight to 18 years old, when he was at Port Alfred High School.
His performance and consistency allowed him to keep competinh at higher levels before the normally acceptable ages. “I was 13 the first time I was selected for the U18 EP team. I had also played first-team golf for Port Alfred High for many years.”
Van Aswegen said he won his first interprovincial competition at the age of 12, among the U18 group, and had various top 10 finished in other national competitions.
While Van Aswegen still enjoys golf, his time these days is consumed by his studies at Nelson Mandela University.
“I have represented various NMU golfing teams but I do not take golf as seriously as I used to because of time constraints due to my studies,” he said.
“I still play as much golf as I can but my main focus is on my studies. I am a part of the advanced engineering and design group (AEDG) at NMU and we have many interesting projects in the works such as a working prosthetic hand and ventilators,” he said.
Van Aswegen is currently designing his own golf putter.
According to a NMU screenshot, Van Aswegen’s lecturer Clive Hands said: “It is one of the very few 3D metal printed golf putters with forged carbon composite inserts in the world, and to our knowledge probably the only current locally manufactured golf club, which is normally left up to the international big players like Calloway, Ping, etc.”