South Africa’s James Kingston will take inspiration from Louis Oosthuizen’s victory at the South African Open going into the MCB Tour Championship – Seychelles, the final event of the 2018 Staysure Tour season.
For the latest edition of the Staysure Tour Player Blog, we spoke to the 53 year old, who won the South African Open in 2007, as he prepares to tee it up at Constance Lemuria in the Indian Ocean.
When Louis came on the European Tour with Charl (Schwartzel) I spent a bit of time with them because we were with same management company.In a way, I was asked to look after them. From the word go, they showed all their potential and the talent they possessed, and they have gone on to do great things in golf. There is a certain amount of pride there; it has been nice to walk the road with them, see them progress and achieve what they have.
Watching Louis over the weekend showed what a class player he is.It was nice to see the emotion. After winning The Open Championship, you would think there is another tournament which means as much. But it’s our national open, it’s the second-oldest open championship in the world.
Oosthuizen congratulates Kingston in 2007
When I won in 2007, Louis had a chance of winning, but he was big enough to spray me with champagne and share in my happiness and joy knowing what it meant to me. To see his emotion tells us what a great event it was last weekend.
If you look at the big names on that trophy: Bobby Locke, Gary Player, Ernie (Els), Goose (Retief Goosen), you can go on and on. It must be so nice for him to have his name on that trophy with those guys. No matter what he achieved, and is still going to achieve, that spot was missing – so I’m very pleased for him.
It’s nice to see someone win.You look at the confidence he had, it’s not always easy. It does come naturally for some people, and when he gets his nose in front you see that confidence grow. I texted him with six holes to play saying ‘well done’.I knew what the outcome was – I was prepared to jump the gun and let him know. He was never going to not win. It does inspire confidence, particularly when you’re so close to a person. We have a close relationship; I’m out here supporting what he’s doing with his wines and representing him on my shirts.
Week in, week out, people don’t see what we do. Sometimes I’m the only guy out on the range hitting balls. When we come to places like these, it’s nice to go to the beach or the pool, but you stand on the range because you want to play better and get into positions where you can win. We saw last season a number of guys getting emotional, like Lee Westwood and Danny Willett. They’ve been up at the top and then had difficult patches of form. They’ve been grinding to get to a point where they can compete again. Lee’s won more than 20 times on the European Tour and Danny won the Masters, it was their first win after a bit of a drought. You could see it meant even more to them because they wanted to have that winning feeling again.
All the guys here in Seychelles are here because they are good enough to win on this Tour. This week, it’s going to depend on who has the guts to take on some shots and give themselves as many opportunities as possible. It’s a tight golf course – it’s not one of the longest but you have to keep it in play. The winner could be the shortest hitter on Tour, but they might be the straightest hitter. It could also be the guy who plays strategically well enough. You can’t play too defensively because this course will get you eventually. You have to balance your game plan. You have to rule out the mistakes. Clark (Dennis) was an example of that last week with the way he played that golf course. 23 under par we thought would never happen again but, to me, that isn’t the most impressive stat – it’s the fact he made no bogeys and went around that golf course without making a single mistake.
