Aldrich Potgieter really excites me as a player destined for stardom. This is why 

I love watching Aldrich play, which I did a lot at last year’s Nedbank Golf Challenge where he led by three strokes entering the final round. In that last round he shot a 75 which was an important learning experience for him.

Although our builds are similar, at that age we played golf differently. He is massively long off the tee. I was perhaps just a little longer than average, but driving was the most inconsistent part of my game, whereas it’s one of Aldrich’s greatest strengths.

He’s also competent around the greens, a better-than-average chipper and bunker player, and an excellent putter. If he has a weakness, it’s his short-irons and wedge play. That’s a part of the game a lot of long hitters struggle with. I’d love to see Aldrich work hard on that for a few months, as I believe you’d see a drastic further improvement in his results. But the sky is the limit for him.

Over the years I’ve seen many golfers who looked like they had a lot of potential. The very special ones like Sandy Lyle, Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, you knew as soon as you saw them that they were going to be great players.

Gary Player talks about ‘it’. ‘It’ is not explainable, but you can see it and feel it.

‘It’ is the difference between Bobby Cole and Ernie Els. Bobby was a beautiful golfer, with perhaps the best golf swing I ever saw. He won a couple of SA Open titles, a PGA Tour event and came close twice to winning The Open. But Bobby didn’t have ‘it’.

Aldrich has got ‘it’ and everything else it takes to become a great player. South Africa has a total of 25 Major wins, not bad for a country on the southern tip of Africa with only 140 000 registered golfers. Since World War II, that’s more Majors than any country except the US.

It's also interesting that when Aldrich and his family moved back to South Africa, they lived and played at Pinnacle Point, which is not a course that’s conducive to allowing a golfer to stand up and smash tee shots. Accuracy off the tee is important and I think that’s why Aldrich has learned not only to hit the ball far but also to play it straight.

Most of South Africa’s best golfers learned their golf on playable courses. Gary Player played at Southdowns a lot in the early years, Bobby Cole played at Geduld in Springs, and the Hennings played at Observatory, which is also where Bobby Locke played a lot. John Bland learned his golf at Irene Country Club and I played at Zwartkop where my father was the pro. A lot of these golf courses had smallish greens, and I’m sure that is why many of us were accurate iron players.

Gowrie Farm

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The final factor in explaining why South African players are so successful is our greens. Up until recently, a lot of our courses did not have bentgrass greens. Many other golfers will remember the cynodon greens that had loads of grain. Many of us learned to putt on difficult greens.

Finally, if I could pass on my experience to Aldrich, I would only advise him to do three things:

1. Trust your swing and your game, don’t listen to your critics.
2. Spend the time practising shots for 40 to 140 metres. I used to practise these shots a lot, when I should have been practising my weakest shot – the driver.
3. Be patient. You’ve got a long career ahead of you. Pace yourself, and at the times when you have a few bad runs, don’t get despondent.

Jack Nicklaus with his youngest son Michael after winning the 1975 Heritage Classic