A close-knit family environment and strong support system are helping Riekus Nortje, a Sunshine Tour twentysomething, climb the ladder, writes MIKE GREEN in Compleat Golfer.
In the madness that follows a win, especially if it’s at an African tournament, Nortje didn’t even have a chance to call anyone to share his triumph at the Zambia Open.
But the tournament director, who comes from George where Nortje’s father, Ferdi, is a clergyman in the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, rang him on behalf of the golfer.
‘I couldn’t call my dad immediately after I won, because of the rigmarole around the prize-giving in Zambia,’ Nortje recalls. ‘Then Reinard Kilian called him for me. It was quite emotional. My dad was first on the list of people to contact, and second was my girlfriend.’
Nortje’s father has been an important influence in making the golfer the gentle, generous person he is.
‘He has a very interesting job,’ Nortje muses. ‘The big thing is, he doesn’t only look after his family, he looks after a whole congregation of about 300 people. When they need help, they phone the reverend. My dad always goes out to assist people in tough situations. He helps them deal with death, births – everything, he’s always there.’
And he’s there for his son, too. ‘My dad has always been into sports. I started playing golf with him from a young age. At one stage he played off a two-handicap, so we had quite a good rivalry going.
‘I speak to him every day after the golf. He’s been there for me many times, putting a timely word in my ear. He really tried to motivate me when things were tough.’
Things were very tough back in 2015 for Nortje. Golfing tough, though, not life tough. But when golf is your life, it can be difficult.
So he decided to give up touring golf after three years of poor results, and threw himself into coaching with the Buhrmann Du Toit Golf Academy at Eagle Canyon Golf Estate. But there was something that drew him back to try his hand on the tournament circuit again.
‘I think the experience of coaching, and the fact I was able to draw a line under those three bad years played a big role in my return,’ Nortje says. ‘Drawing a line – you think the dream is over. All of a sudden, it was back on my pages. I think that helped a great deal with my mindset.
‘The coaching helped me quite a bit too. It made me understand the swing a lot better. It was much easier for me to work on my own swing. I also learned how to practise, which changed things around for me completely, seeing that I didn’t have that much time to practise while I was coaching.’
So Nortje dipped his toes back into the water in the 2017-18 Sunshine Tour season. Things started well enough with cheques earned in April at the Zimbabwe Open (26th place) and the Zambia Sugar Open (48th place).
But there was nothing that seemed to indicate a win was just around the corner.
‘To be honest, I didn’t feel the win at the Zambia Open in June was on the cards,’ he says. ‘I was hitting the ball nicely, but just wasn’t scoring. In the first couple of events, I hit the ball pretty well, but still had a few every tournament that killed me and put me out of contention. I thought that if I could get four rounds together, I would have a good chance and be in contention. But the win was a little bit of a surprise. I felt good about the way I handled it throughout the week. I was calm from the first hole and that helped a lot,’ Nortje adds.
‘It was quite a big thing going back to tournament golf before the win in Zambia. The nice thing about it was I went in without any expectations, I had a clear head and a completely new frame of mind.’
Nortje is smart enough to know that winning a golf tournament is pretty much like trying to bottle lightning. There are many good players to compete against, and golf is a maddeningly frustrating game that gives very little when you chase perfection.
‘I’m very happy with my consistency after the win,’ he says. ‘It shows it wasn’t just a flash in the pan. I definitely feel I can chase another win now. I think I can get another one under my belt with the way I’m hitting the ball. I just need to get my game sharpened up a little bit more.
‘I’ve also broadened my ambitions. I’ve got the Kazakhstan Open on the Challenge Tour coming up at the end of September. I hope I can get into a couple more events overseas and try my hand at bigger tournaments.’
Then, as the winter season on the Sunshine Tour picked up, life intruded once more. ‘The past few tournaments were quite interesting,’ he says wryly. ‘I lost my grandfather during that period, and had I to deal with a few other challenges too. But overall, I think I handled it all pretty well.’
Nortje has clearly been deeply affected by the loss of his grandfather, but not in an overwhelmingly emotional way. And he knows that dealing with it the way he has, is testimony to the kind of caring life his father has held up as an example.
‘There were quite a few people involved in helping me cope with the death of my grandfather, but the three most important were my dad, my mom and my girlfriend,’ he says. ‘The family my grandfather built for us is amazing. When you have a little bit of trouble, you can call anyone – they’re always there for you.
BY THE NUMBERS
1 – Victory on the Sunshine Tour, at the 2017 Zambia Open at Nkana Golf Club
5 – Times Nortje has finished in the top 10 on the Sunshine Tour
26 – His age, with his birthday on 4 February
65 – Lowest round he has shot on the Sunshine Tour, at the Zambia Open
73.07 – Average strokes taken per round in his Sunshine Tour career
634 805 – Sunshine Tour career prize money earned, in rands
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
2012 Big Easy Tour – ERPM (1st), Big Easy Tour – Benoni GC (1st), Big Easy Tour – Irene (1st), Big Easy Tour – Royal J&K (2nd), Big Easy Tour Championship (3rd), Big Easy Tour – Maccauvlei (T7th)
2013 Vodacom Origins Final (T4th), Platinum Classic (T7th)
2014 Zambia Sugar Open (T8th)
2015 Big Easy Tour – The Kings Cup (T2nd)
2016 Big Easy Tour – The Roar (1st), Big Easy Joburg Masters (T2nd)
2017 Zambia Open (1st), Big Easy Tour – Kempton Park (4th), Sun City Challenge (4th)
– This article first appeared in the October issue of Compleat Golfer
