Blair Atholl golf director Paul Marks with the SA Open trophy.
LIV QUARTET SET FOR OPEN Former SA Open champion Branden Grace (January 2020 at Randpark) and fellow LIV players Charl Schwartzel (pictured, who used to have a home at Blair Atholl), Dean Burmester and Hennie du Plessis have confirmed their entry for the Investec SA Open. This being a co-sanctioned tournament between the Sunshine Tour and DP World Tour, there is no ban on LIV golfers who are Sunshine Tour members. They all played last year, with Burmester T-5 on a course which suits his long hitting game, and Schwartzel and Du Plessis T-9. PGA Tour member Erik van Rooyen will compete, but no word yet on two former champions, Louis Oosthuizen (2018 at Randpark)
SA OPEN TRIVIA • Blair Atholl is 24th different course to host in 113-year history, and 11th as host to DP World Tour event, beginning with Glendower in 1997. • Eleven “Greater” Gauteng courses have hosted the championship, others being Glendower (8), Houghton (8), Royal Johannesburg East (7), Randpark Firethorn (4), Maccauvlei (4), Johannesburg GC (3), Serengeti Signature (2), Randpark Bushwillow* (2), Parkview (1) and Zwartkop (1). • Durban Country Club has had the most SA Opens: 17 • Lowest winning scores to par: 25-under at Durban CC (2010 Ernie Els) and 24-under at Humewood (2006 Ernie Els). • Lowest winning score in Gauteng: 21-under at Glendower (2018 Chris Paisley) and Randpark (2020 Branden Grace). • *Bushwillow was used for the opening two rounds at Randpark in 2018 and 2020. 62 TIMES 6 Lowest SA Open round of 62 (same as Open Championship) achieved six times, three in first round, once in third round, and twice in final round, at four different courses. • John Bland first round Durban CC 1994 • Hennie Otto final round Serengeti 2012 • Louis Oosthuizen first round Bushwillow 2018 • Johannes Veerman first round Bushwillow 2020 • Marcus Armitage third round Firethorn 2020 • Branden Grace final round Firethorn 2020
and Christiaan Bezuidenhout (December 2020 at Sun City).
that most golfers would treat as a par 5, the uphill 512m 16th. This was No 1 in difficulty at the Open, averaging 4.20. But 15 was only the eighth hardest. Investec are encouraging spectators to walk The Blair Mile this year as an activation where you collect a tee peg on the 14th tee and hand it back on the 16th green as part of a draw for a prize. “We learned so much from hosting our first Open last year,” said Marks. “We’re laying on shuttle buses to carry fans from one part of the course to another. Because it’s a residential estate there are no short cuts between holes, and a spectator trying to get from No 6 to 13 in a hurry faces far too long a detour. We are organising more water points and toilets.” Immediately following the 2022 Open, heavy rain turned the Crocodile River quietly flowing through the course into an angry torrent of water. It wiped out bridges which had to be replaced, and damaged the attractive halfway house structure which sits beside the river near the par-3 eighth green. It has been recognised as the No 1 halfway house facility in SA (Page 18), and will be operating for spectators during the Open, serving boerie rolls and burgers. There will be a tournament village, with a hot air balloon for sightseeing, left of the par-3 11th green. And a free park-and-ride facility outside the gate of the estate.
a gigantic scale, from the length of the holes, size of the greens and bunkers, and generous width of the fairways during the rest of the year. If you walk in a straight line from the first tee to the pin on the first green, and repeat that on every hole, you will have walked 13.3 kilometres when you reach the pin on 18. And at no stage before then do you return to the clubhouse. The tour pros will walk the course – with occasional lifts on longer distances between a green and the next tee – but members use carts. They also engage the service of caddies, dressed in white overalls similar in look to those used by the caddies at Augusta National. Blair Atholl has a connection with Augusta, Georgia. Members have an annual match (home one year, away the next) with Champions Retreat, a 27-hole facility founded in 1999 25 kilometres from Augusta National which uniquely has each of its three nines designed by the Big 3 of Player, Palmer and Nicklaus. Champions Retreat hosts the first two rounds of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Golfers approaching the 14th tee will notice a sign welcoming them to The Blair Mile. The longest stretch of three consecutive par 4s of any course in SA, possibly the world. No 14 is the shortest of the trio at 479 metres. It is followed by the downhill 518m 15th, then a hole
Gary desires more respect for Blair Atholl Course designer wasn’t happy with low scoring at 2022 Investec SA Open
Marks, “and I’ve recommended that more championship tees are used. Last year they were teeing off the club tees on two of our longest par 4s, Nos 15 and 16. We are better prepared for the Open this time. Last year we were only notified in May that we were hosts with Investec becoming the new sponsors.” The exclusive Blair Atholl estate, set among scenic rolling hills close to Lanseria Airport, was at 7 400 metres the longest Open venue, exceeding the Gary Player CC which was 7 163m for the 2021 Open. However, there are 5 par 5s (and 5 par 3s) and we know the tour pros milk them for birdies. Over four days there were 56 eagles and 1 657 birdies. If the 519-metre par-5 18th, easiest hole last year, was played as a par 4 from the club tee, that might provide for a 10-under winning score. Player, incidentally, won his 12th SA Open title at Royal Johannesburg in 1977 with a 15-under total of 273 when the East Course was formidably long for the equipment of that era. So perhaps 16-under 45 years later is not especially low scoring. Everything about Blair Atholl is on
G ARY PLAYER WAS FAR from happy with Thriston Lawrence’s winning score of 16-under-par 272 in last year’s Investec South African Open at Blair Atholl. It wasn’t what he was expecting on a golf course he designed at his former rural homestead to be the longest and most demanding championship layout in the land. He wanted the players to be more respectful of par. The average score from 460 rounds was 71.78. “Gary was critical of the low scoring, disappointingly so, and felt the course wasn’t set up as exactingly by the DP World Tour as it should have been for our Open, which Gary has won 13
times,” said Paul Marks, golf director at Blair Atholl Golf & Equestrian Estate. “Lawrence equalled his own course record of 64 in the first round, and Ockie Strydom broke that with a 63 on day two. Nine birdies and not a single bogey. You had to shoot two-under to make the 36-hole cut. Scoring was trickier on the weekend, but I agree with Gary in feeling it could have been a tougher test. We would like to see a winning score of around 10-under this time. The aim is to get players to hit longer irons into par 4s.” Indications are we might see that happen when Blair Atholl again hosts the Investec Open from November 30 to December 3. “We are narrowing the fairways and growing the rough,” said
62 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
NOVEMBER 2023
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