When it comes to cricketers of yesterday and today who play golf, there is an undeniable thread that binds the two sports. For cricketers, it appears as if golf is a particularly popular pastime on long tours, a way to clear minds and the perfect means to retain a competitive edge when they have called time on their playing careers.

Incumbent Proteas Test captain Temba Bavuma is entrenched within the golfing world. He has a partnership with the TaylorMade team and is a brand ambassador for the Sunshine Tour and Steyn City. Having first taken up golf when playing for the Gauteng U19 team, his game has developed ever since tagging along and steering the cart.

‘Golf is probably the hardest sport I have had a go at,’ he says. ‘With golf, you need to be fully switched on, every shot matters and each hole has a specific strategy.’

Bavuma says he definitely doesn’t hit the cricket ball as far as the golf ball, but there is a symmetry between the sports. ‘The effortlessness of my golf swing comes from my cricket technique where I’m all about trying to time the ball into the gaps and that has transferred into my golf swing,’ says the 35-year-old middle-order batsman from Langa.

‘With golf, you need to be fully switched on, every shot matters and each hole has a specific strategy’
– Temba Bavuma

BY THE NUMBERS

Proteas cricketers and their handicaps
(as per Handicaps Network Africa)

0.3 Jacques Kallis
(Westlake GC)

0.7 Herschelle Gibbs
(King David Mowbray)

2.9 AB de Villiers
(Pretoria CC)

3.1 Temba Bavuma
(Steyn City)

3.6 Shaun Pollock
(Cotswold Downs)

3.7 Neil McKenzie
(CC Johannesburg)

3.8 Vernon Philander
​​​​​​​(Kuilsrivier GC)

4.0 Chris Morris
(Centurion CC)

4.1 Quinton de Kock
(Simola G&CE)

4.8 Mark Boucher
(Westlake GC)

6.0 JP Duminy
(Westlake GC)

7.6 Aiden Markram
(Centurion CC)

9.3 Pat Symcox
(Selborne GE)

9.5 Ashwell Prince
(Royal Cape GC)

Jacques Kallis, who turns 50 in October, remains the benchmark for former cricketers playing golf. Now off a 0.3 handicap, he explains the difference between the sports: ‘In cricket you look to slide your arms and stay square on to face the ball, whereas in golf you look to clear your left hip if you are a right-hander.

‘In cricket, your right elbow is out, but in golf you need it to be tucked in nicely. It’s little differences like this that make it not 100% accurate to say good cricketers equal good golfers.'

Then again, his good mate Mark Boucher says: ‘Jacques will spend every day hitting buckets of balls on the range improving his game. Me? I just go out there and play.’

Herschelle Gibbs, who was a multi-talented sportsman, is second only to Kallis when it comes to local index. He took a serious interest in golf during his match-fixing ban and hasn’t looked back ever since he swung his first club at King David Mowbray.

‘It originated during my six-month ban, and back in the late 1990s and early 2000s Tiger Woods was ruling the golf world,’ he tells us. ‘It’s funny because I got my first and only hole-in-one in the year I started playing. I’ve come close since but haven’t done it again,’ says Gibbs, who is the proud holder of the first hole-in-one at Pezula Golf Course.

Gibbs draws parallels between T20 cricket and LIV Golf. He is a purist of the game, with Test cricket and the PGA Tour for him the pinnacle. ‘I feel it’s quite embarrassing for a professional golfer not to have to make a cut,’ he says in reference to LIV Golf’s format.

AB de Villiers, whose passion for golf was instilled by his father, says his first memory of the game was playing at his childhood home and growing up in a sports-crazy family. He had a big backyard and, along with his two older brothers, created a mashie course.

‘I still have that passion for the game but it's difficult to be consistent. Golf is not an easy game and is something you need to spend a lot of time on,’ says De Villiers, who lists his claim to fame at the Kingsbarns Golf Links when he was leading professional golfer Rory McIlroy by one shot after one hole at the Dunhill Links Pro-Am.

The former opening batsman, who has a cricket net which doubles as a driving range in his backyard, says he experiences months when his game is ‘very hot’ and ‘very cold’. But like his cricket, De Villiers hits the ball straight and true. ‘One of my strengths is distance and, if I get my game together, I hit it a long way and get it close to the green.’