The Origins of the Andrew Mentis Endowment Fund

In the early days of NOMADS more emphasis was placed on raising funds for charity than promoting golf and so it was only natural that a fund raising tournament in aid of a national charity  was organised in 1967. At the eleventh hour, the sponsor, an international publishing house, withdrew their offer of R 1500 sponsorship and Andrew Mentis, a NOMADS Founder member, stepped into the breach to sponsor the first of what is now known as the NOMADS National Andrew Mentis Endowment Golf Tournament which each club holds annually as a training exercise for its Vice-Captain, apart from raising funds to purchase some tangible asset for its nominated beneficiary. This also lead to Andrew donating an "Andrew Mentis Trophy" to each club in the family. This original generous gesture has brought Andrew and the NOMADS clubs an enormous amount of publicity amongst the golfing and welfare fraternities as the total amount raised is now in the vicinity of R 27.5 million (excluding funds raised by Zimbabwe).