The year ‘Long John’ ruled the Jozi ‘jungle’ as Tarzan

SO, what’s this about Tarzan?

Just hang fire for a minute and it’ll become clear. But the Joburg Open, a European Tour event, next week comes to Randpark – my club – and it’s a great honour for the members. Of course, we have staged a European Tour event before and that was the 2000 South African Open won by Germany’s Mathias Gronberg. And the club also played host to the 1995 SA Open which, saw Retief Goosen triumph, but that was not part of the European Tour.

Then there was the 1990 AECI Charity Classic, which was a stop on the FNB Tour (now Sunshine Tour) and was one of the bigger-money summer events at the time and it attracted quite an impressive international line-up.

I reported on that tournament for The Star and I remember a furious final round dice for the title between David Feherty and John Daly. Yes, ‘Long John’ was here, was a professional of just three years standing at the time and went on to seal a thrilling victory. The tournament saw a ton of birdies on the Randpark course (now Firethorn) and both the Irishman and the young American posted blistering 10-under-par 62 course records over the duration of the four days.

I couldn’t recall the finer details of what transpired though, so I thought I’d go back to my press clippings from that tournament which are housed in The Star’s library. I figured it might be fun to relive that final day report in this column. But the clippings weren’t there, and – I can’t think of any other explanation – somebody must have pilfered them. Why, I cannot imagine.

I was gutted but, anyway, what was I to do? Well, I went onto the internet and, fortunately, stumbled on an extract from Feherty’s Somewhere in Ireland, a Village is Missing an Idiot.

Now a renowned commentator on the game, Feherty was a marvellous golfer in his day with 10 worldwide wins, three of these coming in our country. And fortunately he writes about the 1990 AECI Charity Classic and Daly (who was his playing partner in the final round and who he couldn’t believe how far the younger man was hitting the ball) in his book.

Here are a few paragraphs describing what happened: “The first time I met (John) was on the first tee at Randpark in 1990. He was a pretty new pro. I was leading by a shot after three rounds at 18-underpar from this blond American kid, who at first I found mildly irritating. I raced to the turn in 30 that day and was still only one in front of the American kid, who by this stage I was finding extremely irritating.

“To cut a long story even shorter, we were tied playing the last hole, an uphill par-5 (a par-4 on Firethorn today). I hit the fairway and Tarzan visited the jungle (members will now this ‘jungle’ as a little clump of trees) on the left, forcing him to chip out up the fairway. Seizing my chance, I hit a glorious fourwood onto the green, about 40 feet from the hole. Cave Boy then bludgeoned a wedge to 20 feet. I twitched mine five feet past, he drained and I waned (three-putted to hand Daly the title on 24-under-par 264). By this stage he had become so damn irritating, I just had to make friends with him.”

And, as an aside, the camaraderie between the two endured after that.

So there you are, Tarzan did win at Randpark. Just ask David Feherty. And as for Big John Daly, he would go on to say that winning at Randpark gave him the confidence to become a Major champion not too long afterwards when he captured the 1991 US PGA Championship.