European Tour champion Robert Rock smiled as he saw children from five schools take part in the Tshwane Open golf clinic, held at the Mabopane driving range on Wednesday.
For the man who has beaten Tiger Woods to one of his two European Tour titles, it reflected exactly why South African golf is currently in such rude health.
Roack said: “This is what you need – free events at public facilities like this. This is how it should start, with a free golf facility for the kids. We don’t do enough of this at other tournaments in the world, and it’s so important.
“There is no shortage of great golfers in South Africa, but you always need to keep an eye on where the game starts just to make sure it is starting. For example, the development of golf is slow in the UK because people have taken their eye off the ball over the last ten years.”
The clinics that partner so many of South Africa’s top tournaments are a success story in their own right, and the country is leading the way when it comes to successfully focusing its golf development initiatives.
Rock’s assessment of the driving range and clinic on the outskirts of Pretoria was music to the ears of those involved in the project.
“We’ve revamped the facility and have a programme in place to make it more effective going forward,” said Nomasonto Ndlovu, the SED for Communications, Marketing, Events for the City of Tshwane.
“We know that golf contributes to our economy – with this driving range we’re hoping that we can get the industry more interested in Mabopane and this part of the city. As a city, we are so excited about this tournament. It gives us the opportunity to take golf and use it as a catalyst to stimulate economic growth and tourism.”
The Tshwane Open is fast becoming the blueprint for golf development, with the host course of this week’s €1.5 million event, Copperleaf Golf & Country Estate, also involved in the Mabopane initiative.
Golf Director Dave Usendorf said: “The City wanted this tournament to represent more than just Copperleaf, and to take golf to the community. We have helped with some human resources and we’ve put money into helping surface the driving range and look after it. We have our greenkeeper helping with that as well.
“We’ve also helped the development team here prepare budgets and so on for the city of Tshwane. And once we’ve created a blueprint with this facility, there’s no reason why we can’t roll it out to other areas of Tshwane as well. The Mayor of Tshwane wants to leave a legacy through golf, and we buy into that.”
The initiative has also caught the interest of The European Tour’s newly-formed Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability division.
Fredrik Lindgren, the head of this new division, said: “We really want to grow our relationship with all our partners and tournaments, such as the Tshwane Open. So we’re putting more of a structure behind our own development to bring another dimension to it. This is a very important part of what we do. Without more golfers or more people interested in golf, professional golf doesn’t grow. And this Tshwane Open clinic is an incredible example of this.”
The Tshwane Open will again feature a strong South African challenge against a European contingent which has come to accept how tough it is to win in the country.
Rock said: “It’s always a good field here. The South Africans always support their home events, which is nice. And they always seem to win them as well, which is getting quite annoying!”
