By Gary Lemke
So we near the end of what has been our first year as media partners with Els for Autism. By the time you read this, the final of the Els for Autism Drive to the SA Open will have been played at Highland Gate and the winners will be readying for five-star treatment at the big tournament at Glendower in January.
We’ve had a lot of fun along the way and this writer was in Stellenbosch for one of the golf days hosted at De Zalze at the beginning of November.
The desk job keeps me off the course most of the time, but a bad day on the golf course beats a good day in the office. Not that this was a bad day on course – for a double-figure handicapper.
Memo to self: In 2017, get an official handicap.
The fine print for the day requested that anyone who didn’t have an official handicap had to play off scratch. The format of the day was betterball Stableford, so you can imagine the emotions going through the mind of my playing partner, Anton, when we shook hands after registration.
‘What do you play off,’ he asked, filling in the card as we waited on the first tee. ‘Scratch,’ I said, suppressing a cough.
‘Sorry?’
‘Scratch,’ and I pulled out my three-wood for the 1st hole, which requires a drive over a crop of trees near the bottom of the fairway on a dogleg right par four.
‘Lead the way, captain,’ Anton said. I’d not had a swing for a couple of months since a humbling experience on a Pearl Valley course that had been soaked by winter rain. Not wanting to waste any of my good shots on the driving range, I teed up and addressed the ball.
I cannoned it over the trees – OK, struck it sweetly enough into prime position on the right of the fairway – and picked up my tee. Anton smiled. He hit his drive over the wall on the left and reloaded for three off the tee. ‘At last they’ve given me a decent partner,’ he must have thought. Not that my swing is picture perfect; at Castle Course, one of the St Andrews Links courses last year, Claude Harmon, who used to be Els’ swing coach, remarked of mine, ‘I haven’t seen a swing like yours in a long time.’ I took that as a compliment …
Anyway, I signed for a five on that opening hole… and by the time we got to the 9th – not before a welcome draught Stellenbrau on the 6th hole – I’d contributed six points.
For a ‘scratch’ player I was having a bad day at the office. So what, these things happen.
Anton had changed his shoes after nine holes and we also changed the captaincy. We both played the 10th well, making fives, and by this time the day was about having fun. The cat had long been let out of the bag and a friendship was being formed. Which is what golf is all about.
I managed to make par at the 11th, a lovely hole which demands a carry over a dam, leaving a short pitch to the par-four green. The 14th had a ‘marshmallow longest drive’ prize and Anton smashed his marshmallow past the ladies tee. Just when the sweet lady at the sponsored hole was going to write down his name and move the marker to an unattainable distance, Anton admitted he’d hidden a stone in the marshmallow.
The 17th was probably the hardest hole of the day – I lost two balls trying to force things right and walked it – and on the elevated 18th tee we met singer Kurt Darren and Nico van Rensburg, former pro and integral to the Els for Autism business. A nicer guy is hard to find.
It’s a teasing par four, with a stream coming into play for those who go for the green and mis-hit their drives. Darren topped his drive into the bush and Van Rensburg carried the stream, but pushed it out right.
Me? I hit a sweet 3-wood, but a little too sweet and the ball landed behind the fairway tree, giving me no second shot. Sigh. The life of a scratch golfer hey.
The evening’s prize giving and auction went off well, guests washed their dinner down with a selection of Ernie Els Wines and everyone went home a winner. For, on days like these, there are no losers.
