Saayman Says … Golfing Weblog

Hello all

Below is the challenge that I have set myself for 2010 in more or less a nutshell. Please let me know what you all think.

My goal is to pass the so called Swiss PGA’s ‘playing ability test’ by the end of 2010. This test requires you to shoot a max of 8 over par per round in an accredited professional tournament over 3 days. This is only the start of the quest, thereafter I will need to find a good job as an apprentice at a golf course and be mentored by an A graded teaching pro. After completing the 3 year course successfully I will become a registered teaching professional with the right to play pro tournaments in Switzerland and some in Europe with the senior tour being the realistic goal.

So all in I have given myself 6 to 8 months to jump the 1st hurdle, then the next 3 years are all about fun and hard work until I reach the ultimate goal. I have already set a goal thereafter. It’s to find a talent in Switzerland that I can turn into a great success in the world of golf, hopefully getting this person to the top ten in the world. Pie in the sky perhaps, but without a dream and the desire to do something about it, nothing will ever happen and we will never know. There are times when I think it will never happen and times when I think it will be easy as pie! I am sure that if we put it to the vote then the outcome would be divided. I will by nature side with those that think it’s possible and play on until it’s done.

Let me know what you guys all think, auf deutsch, or in English.

Thanks and I am off to the practice range now…………..

Cheers

Geoff

Golf to me is and always should be about the people that play this crazy game.

I joined a group on Sunday 7^th February for 18 holes at the GPCC. In the 4 ball were 2 South Africans and one guy from India. Ranjar and Kobus, (left and 2^nd from left in picture), are in business together and 1 other player. We had a great round of golf and I managed to shoot 10 over par 82 on the GPCC. These 3 guys made the round lots of fun and I hope that our paths cross again sometime.

On the 8^th February I played a round at Lost City Golf Course with my nephew and his father in law Gerhardt. The pressure was on me to perform as Dylan knows that I want to play serious golf and am here to get the handicap down so I can start the PGA course. So all this added pressure caused me to play like a complete banana! Not too sure if bananas play golf but if they did I can only imagine this is how they would play. As we were playing stableford and not stroke play I was able to hide the really bad holes by simply picking up and taking a scratched hole! Not quite the way I like to play golf but there you have it. Had I scored each and every shot there is a possibility that we would still be out there.

Roll on 9^th February and there was light at the end of the tunnel. Playing a much tougher course in the Gary Player Course at Sun City I shot a credible 10 over par 82. After the bad round the day before this seemed almost as good as winning the Nedbank Challenge which is played each December in Sun City.

10^th and 11^th February saw me with my very good friends Hans and Maude. I have known them for around 20 years and am known to them as T bone Geoff. Hans and Maude are the owners of a very successful butchery/supermarket in Johannesburg and are part of the reason I have such a big stomach….. We played GPCC on the 10^th and I shot par, birdie, sting! In case you think I have lost it I was bitten by something after a pulled tee shot off the 3^rd tee box. Neither my caddy Peter nor I saw what had bitten me but man did it hurt. I still managed to chip out to the fairway but was in a lot of pain. ‘Taking your medicine’ on the golf course took on a whole new meaning suddenly. My left wrist became very swollen and it was decided that it would be best if I got back for medical attention asap. I was picked up by the medics and taking straight through to emergencies at the local doctor. He was also uncertain what had bitten me but was fairly confident that after around 30 minutes after the incident that it wasn’t a snake. He gave me 2 injections in the butt which I think hurt more than the sting. I was told to take it easy but realized that if I could get a lift back to the course then I would be able to finish the back 9 at least. Not wanting to give up the chance to play golf I quickly arranged my medicine from the chemist and got my lift back to the course. Timing was perfect as my playing partners were just leaving the 9^th as I arrived thus allowing me to play the back 9 with my swollen wrist. Not too sure what I shot as I was a bit spaced out on the medicine that the doctor had given me. On the 11^th we played Lost City and I shot 77. Things are really starting to look good but I don’t want to get my hopes up. The golfing gods much be left in peace.

As I was saying golf is all about the people that you meet on the course and the fun that you have with them. The world is also a very small place. I was not planning to play on the 12^th February but managed to find a spot at 0810. After booking in I was walking out of the pro shop and saw someone that I knew from Switzerland. Someone that had been a good customer of mine when I worked in the golf shop in Zurich. Man were we surprised to see each other. Heinz Schneider and his wife Ingrid are on a world tour and were only in Sun City for 2 nights. What are the chances of this happening? We arranged to play together and it was once again a great round for me shooting 77 with the chance again of making a far better score had just a few putts dropped. My caddy and I worked out that I missed 6 birdie putts so it was a great round on the Gary Player Golf Course. They come around for a braai at the unit I am staying in and brought a friend of theirs Mike Loewke who had just arrived from the US. They are off to the coast tomorrow and I wish them a safe trip.

A very proud great uncle pictured with Thomas James, the future of golf looks bright.

Well that’s all for now.

I will have a new post end of next week and hope that all is well with all of you? Further to this I will be spending more time with Wayne Westner and will upload the training videos we have done in the hope that they help you as much as they have helped me.

Cheers for now.

Greetings from sunny South Africa

It’s been just over a week now since I landed in South Africa and I wanted to share my week with you.

I have been able to play a total of only 4 rounds thus far with some good and some really bad ones. In addition to this I had 3 hours coaching with Wayne Westner. Man did he work me. I was allowed to hit a total of 8, yes 8, balls in those 3 hours! And that was in the 1^st 10 minutes. What he wanted to do was film the swing to see where I was and where I needed to be. We changed my grip marginally and really worked on me swinging around my core (looks a bit like a barrel on the video clip). Then getting the club on plane and making sure that I rotated my shoulders to fully complete the swing.  I am quite honest in saying that in those 3 hours I really leant a lot and will share the video with you on the blog once I get back to Switzerland.

Sadly all these changes had a major effect on my swing (that’s my story) and my first round at Roodepoort Country Club was disastrous. I shot 20 over par which equates to a 92. I was not a happy bunny.

 Next up was the Gary Player Country Club (GPCC) at Sun City. This is perhaps one of the best tests of golf in South Africa. It’s a masterpiece created out of the African bush by Gary Player which is very long off the back tees (7162 metres) and has narrow but receptive landing areas. The greens are lightning fast but like carpets to putt on. If the line is correct, it’s in, if not it may run way past the hole. I shot a dismal 18 over par playing off the back tees which equates to a 90. Wow a 2 stroke improvement, what an easy game…….

The following day we played the Lost City Course (LCGC) which is more forgiving and designed I believe for the hotel golfer.  You have to take a cart; the fairways are wide and the greens slower than GPCC. Walking is not allowed because it would take at my best guess at least 6 hours to walk. There are some major changes in elevation on this course as well and the landscape is far more dramatic than GPCC. So off we went early in the morning me expecting to keep up the better by 2 shot routine I had established now. I shot 7 over after 9 and felt I was in with a chance. Suffice it to say the next 9 really beat the living s… out of me. In fact it was so bad that I simply picked up on 4 of the 9. This is really not something I often do but trust me if I didn’t there was every chance that I would have driven myself to the 13^th hole and jumped in. The water hazard here is full of Crocs and they could have had me as a play thing instead of all the golf balls that have been lost there. So bang went the ‘my score will improve by 2 each time I play’ theory. This course measures 6549 from the back so a walk in the park compared to GPCC.

What we had done (Etienne Wehrli and his wife Suzanna) is take photos and videos of each other during the round and I took a good look at this after my dismal round at LCGC. I am a great believer in video or photographic assistance while helping someone learn more about their swing. As we cannot see ourselves when we play any kind of sport it’s really difficult to see what you are doing wrong. I immediately noticed that I was falling back at impact. I had, in thinking about all the things I was trying to perfect, forgotten to swing through the ball and complete the swing. I was literally swinging myself off my feet and ending with all my weight on my right side as opposed to the left side. I was determined to see if this was a part of the problem. Etienne Wehrli, who is currently the number one rated amateur in Switzerland and works for Ping, made a few suggestions on how best to get through the ball and complete the swing. He also made a few suggestions to make my putting and chipping stroke smoother and through the ball and more consistent.  He shot around par on each day; I stopped writing his score, as it depressed me too much. He has been coaching Suzanna who has one of the best all round games for anyone I have ever seen playing off 36.

Day 3 and back to GPCC with renewed enthusiasm and hope reborn. All I thought about on tee number 1 was to swing through the ball to complete the weight transfer so that I ended up on my left side. And bam, straight down the middle with a gentle draw. Could this be the start of something? Was I hoping for too much too soon and would I end up in that crocodile pit after all? 2^nd shot onto the green, long birdie putt and walked off with par. I will not bore you to death with a blow by blow account of my round (would love to but that might ruin the friendship) but suffice it to say the crocodiles went hungry. I shot a credible 81 (from the big boy tees again) with 2 double bogeys, one on the 9th and sadly one on the last. Both were a touch unlucky. If the golfing gods had given me about 1metre either way it would have been a round without any doubles.

 A quick note on the Caddy’s.

Sun City has some of the friendliest and most professional caddy’s that I have ever had the privilege to play golf with.  They are a joy to speak to and have you laughing more often than not at this wonderful game. Most play to a low handicap so know the game and importantly this difficult course. They also know where most of the snakes are but not all. Reuben who was caddying for Etienne nearly stood on a Mozambiquean Spitting Cobra but managed to jump back just in time. I thought that he would perhaps die of heart failure afterwards as he must have been pushing way above 200 beats to the minute. Happily we all were able to have a great laugh afterwards but beware.

Will keep in touch.

Wish you were here…………….

Cheers