GOLDEN MOMENTS
MADIBA
Magic
On 18 July we observe ’67 minutes for Mandela’ as part of Nelson Mandela International Day
BY GARY LEMKE
There was a time when everything President Nelson Mandela touched turned to gold. We famously saw him wearing the Springbok jersey at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, he donned the Bafana Bafana shirt when they were crowned AFCON champions in 1995 and he sent personal messages to Penny Heyns and Josia Thugwane after their 1996 Atlanta Olympics gold medal heroics.
They called it ‘Madiba Magic’ and it even extended to the fairways of Erinvale Golf Course, where Ernie Els and Wayne Westner won the World Cup of Golf in 1996.
Mandela was not a golfer, which is not to say he didn’t enjoy the sport. Having spent 27 years, the prime of his life, holed up in prison robbed him of his best opportunity to learn the game.
However, he did spend six years living in a house in 13th Avenue, a 3-wood and lob-wedge away from Houghton Golf Club, and it was here that in February 1996 he arrived at the golf course to surprise Els who was about to tee off at the Alfred Dunhill Championship. The two had become friends.
’It was the greatest honour for me to have met President Mandela on several occasions and the conversations we had will always be among my most treasured memories. He is the most special human being I ever met,’ said Els. ‘I met him for the first time in 1994 with Mr Johann Rupert when we had a dinner. His home was close to Houghton Golf Club and he came over one time in 1996 and we exchanged gifts. I have still got the picture in my office in the US. And then every time I won a tournament he used to call me.’
’It was the greatest honour for me to have met President Mandela and the conversations we had will always be among my most treasured memories’
– Ernie Els
South Africa’s most garlanded golfer, Gary Player, also considered Mandela a friend. ‘I remember the days when we used to have the Nelson Mandela Invitational golf tournament at Pecanwood and it was my job to greet Madiba when he arrived. As he climbed out of the helicopter and I went up to him he smiled that big smile of his and said, “Good morning Gary, do you remember me?” Just wonderful.’
In 2000, Golf Digest approached Mandela to say a few words about Player, to coincide with an article on the publication’s 50 greatest golfers. He wrote back with a hand-signed essay.
‘Because he was a professional golfer who spent much of his career outside South Africa, Gary Player was always perceived as being one step removed from the world of politics. Yet, few men in our country's history did as much to enact political changes for the better,’ Mandela wrote.
GOLF HONOURS MADIBA
The Nelson Mandela Championship was played for the first time in December 2012 and was co-sanctioned by the Sunshine Tour and the then European Tour, and sponsored by the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Scott Jamieson won his first European Tour event when he lifted the trophy at Durban CC.
In 2013, the event was held a week after Mandela’s death, with South Africa’s Dawie van der Walt earning his second European Tour win, at Mt Edgecombe.
‘During my many years spent in prison, I was frequently made aware of the harsh treatment Mr Player endured. In 1969, at the (US) PGA Championship, a group of demonstrators who opposed apartheid yelled in the middle of his swing. They threw ice at him. Once they even tried to rush him, but Jack Nicklaus, who is the greatest golfer of all, brandished his golf club and helped restrain them. Amid this, Mr Player finished in second place, perhaps his finest performance ever.
‘On another occasion, in Australia, protesters ventured on to one of the greens in the middle of the night and etched, with white lime, the slogan, "Go Home, You Racist Pig" on the green. Mr Player frequently received threats against his life and was in danger many times, and the American FBI stayed in his company for months on end to protect him.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Nelson Mandela Invitational was a charity golf event that took place from 2000 to 2006. A team event, the winners were Retief Goosen and Allan Henning (2000), Simon Hobday and Martin Maritz (2001), Hugh Baiocchi and Deane Pappas (2002), Lee Westwood and Hobday (2003), Vincent Tshabalala and Ernie Els (2004), Tshabalala and Tim Clark (2005) and Bobby Lincoln and Goosen (2006).
Shalen Ramcharan (greenkeeper), Marna Coetzee (marketing) and Derick Reinke (GM)
‘And he always remained loyal to South Africa. Many athletes have fled their countries for the US, but Mr Player remained true to his South African heritage. He did his best to explain the complex nature of trying to invoke change in our country, and always set a tremendous example for all South Africans.’
While Mandela might have considered Nicklaus golf’s GOAT, he also met the only other contender for the title, Tiger Woods, in 1998. 'He invited us to his home,' Woods recalled of the invite on the way to the Nedbank Golf Challenge, where he lost to Nick Price in a playoff. 'And my father and I went to have lunch with him. It still gives me chills thinking about it. The energy is unlike any person I've met. Meeting him at his home is an experience I will never, ever forget.'
After Nicklaus experienced the privilege of meeting Mandela, he said: ‘Nelson Mandela was a good man; a terrific man. Gary [Player] and I were playing at Houghton Golf Club and all of a sudden an entourage of cars came up on the road behind us and stopped. Mandela got out. He walked up the hill to the tee to say hello to me and to introduce himself. I got a big kick out of that, and I was very, very humbled.’
So, however you spend your 67 minutes in celebrating the memory of Madiba, reflect on the greatness of the man who will forever remain the Father of The Rainbow Nation and his role in who we as South Africans are today.
PETRI OESCHGER/SUNSHINE TOUR/BACKPAGEPIX/ERNIE ELS/GARY PLAYER/X
