Here comes the ‘Summer Swing’ and as with so many summers before it, we can expect some big moves from our local talent at the DP World Tour co-sanctioned events.
To my surprise I was exempt for the Fortress Invitational recently and so took the opportunity to fly down and compete at Glendower. Following an opening round of ‘what ifs’ which eventually led to a 72 but could have/should have been a 68 (said no golfer before me), I bowed out early, courtesy of a flurry of bogeys halfway through my second round which led to your fourth favourite Zimbabwean pro golfer missing the cut by a couple of shots.
Wait a minute… Price, McNulty, De Jonge, Vincent, Charamba, Follett-Smith, Johnstone, Chitengwa, another Vincent, Denis Watson and dot dot dot. Okay, I’ll happily accept a top-10 position in your favourite Zim Pro Rankings.
Back to Glendower, though, and what struck me about where the Sunshine Tour talent pool is right now, was the number of youngsters out there who believe so wholeheartedly in what they are setting out to do. Gone are the days of players acknowledging that it’s tough, or that ‘school fees’ are due and there is no way around paying said dues. I overheard conversations between 20-year-old rookies who were so certain of their pending success that nobody would ever be able to talk any ‘sense’ into them.
Of course, I say that tongue-in-cheek, as I’ve always believed that it takes a certain type of mindset to achieve greatness in our sport. Some onlookers might even call it arrogance when they see, or listen to these young bucks. But it’s important to remember one thing about golf. And especially professional golf: unlike most other professional sports, there is nobody else on your team who can pick up your slack if you drop the ball, like on a rugby field. There is no split-second reaction time to return a down-the-line forehand, like on a tennis court. You are all alone out there and that ball can only ever be set in motion by you, the player.
Panic can set in at any moment and I’ve personally seen it cripple a handful of very promising careers. The resilience required to continuously perform at a high level in this game is unlike any other sport I can think of. The day it makes you, could also be the eve of the day it breaks you.
I believe in the way these young bucks are handling their business and would encourage anybody who wants to be a top professional golfer to adopt a similar mindset. Create an outer layer so impenetrable that even the doomsayers at your home club, or those gathered around the next family braai give up on their quest to drain the belief from you, like a gaggle of energy vampires.
Fortify your beliefs and baton down the hatches because if the energy vamps don’t get you, this game will be doing everything in its power to humble you, at best. Or like most before you, it will lay waste to everything you once believed to be possible.
Five names to watch out for to break through and win big this summer: Kyle Barker, Luca Filippi, Dylan Naidoo, Kyle de Beer and Rupert Kaminski.
– This column first appeared in the December 2023 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
