The South African Golf Foundation

 

The following was extracted from an article in a magazine written without a by-line to acknowledge, however it does go to show that we have a lot to be proud of in our association with golf in South Africa. Nomads sponsored the entry of a Junior golfer/s to the San Diego Rose Bowl World Junior Golf Championships for many years with a spectacular record of success. This serves to emphasise the approach of our current National Chairman that we need to educate the public more fully that we are not a charity through golf organisation but that the furtherance of golf is our foremost priority - the charity part, as important as it is, is a derivative of our activities not the root.

A meeting of vital importance to the future of golf in South Africa was held at the Royal Johannesburg Golf Club on Monday 18th October 1960. At that meeting, which had been called to discuss ways of fostering golf among boys and girls, the South African Golf Foundation was started with a donation of 
£ 250 received from the "Follow The Sun" Nomads. 

The goal and purpose of the Foundation are:-
a)    to promote interest in golf amongst youngsters throughout South Africa
b)    to encourage social communication amongst members
c)    to arrange golf tournaments during school holidays in order to keep
         juniors active whilst at the same time engendering comradeship. 

Bobby Cole and Hugh Baiocchi were both Founder members.

For 50 years the SAGF was a well disciplined and well controlled golfing body. It earned the respect and recognition of the SA Golf Union and all Provincial Golf Unions, not only through it's aims but, more importantly, through it's young players who understand the rules and etiquette of golf and the true sense of the word sportmanship. The Foundation feels justified in the belief that they produced excellent junior golfers who become respected senior golfers.

Any South African Golf "Who's Who" would include the names of former Foundation juniors such as Sally Little, Dale Hayes, Bobby Cole, Hugh Baiocchi, John Bland, Andries Oosthuizen, Gavin Levenson, David Suddards, Kevin Suddards, Jeff Hawkes, Etienne Groenewalt, Robbie Meier, Trevor Lagerway, Philip Jonas, Justin Hobday, Mark Wiltshire, André Cruse, Ernie Els, Ben Fouchee, David Frost, Ian Hutchings, Derek and Neil James, Richard Kaplan, Des Terblanche, Peter Todt, Peter van der Riet, Dean van Staden, Wilhelm Winsness and so many others.

Currently, amongst the more prominent names who fly our flag so high overseas there are such individuals as Major winners Retief Goosen, Charl Schwartzel, Trevor Immelman and Louis Oosthuisen. Other notables include Rory Sabbatini, Tim Clark, Jaco van Zyl etc.

Back in 1960 the then Chairman of the SAGF, Basil Keartland, forecast the playing of Junior Inter-team, Junior Inter-Provincial and perhaps even International matches. These words were prophetic, because all these thoughts have become fact over the years.

Coaching and exhibition matches by leading Professionals were arranged to raise funds, whilst in 1962 a clinic was held by Gary Player and Arnold Palmer. 

The SAGF spread to all the Provinces in 1962 and sanction was given for a Boys and Girls Championships be held in Durban during July 1963. The conditions laid down by the SAGU were that all contestants were to be under 19 on the day of the event and with a handicap limit of 12. The age limit was subsequently changed to 18 to fall in line with international standards. Thus began what today is known as the SA Junior Championships. 

The first two National Foundation Championships were won by Bobby Cole and Dale Hayes respectively. Dale Hayes went on to win the Junior World Championships in San Diego, USA - a feat which has since been repeated by Philip Jonas  (on two occasions), Ernie Els, Warren Schutte and Desmond Terblanche, the latter who won the event in brilliant fashion, setting a new Junior course record of 67 over the Torre Pines South Course.

The ranks of the more successful amateur and professional players are today strongly supported by members who owe their emergence into the areas of national and international repute to their membership of the Foundation.

Most members of recent Springbok teams were former members of the Foundation , while several others are studying on golf scholarships at universities in the USA. This gives further reason to be proud of the South African Golf Foundation and to feel assured that the high standards, set so many years ago by our Founders, are being maintained to this day.

"These achievements by our Juniors also make us aware of our debt to the golfing world at large for its support. We must therefore express our grateful thanks to all who have assisted us in the many ways which have fostered golf and ensured that South Africa will always have a wonderful future in world golf. We must also acknowledge the deep indebtedness of the Foundation to our various sponsors over the past years, as well as the Golf Clubs throughout South Africa and the Nomads Club who back the Foundation with their continued support and encouragements".

The SAJGF ended its 50 year solo reign at the end of 2010 when it, along with other branches of the golfing fraternity, were all brought under the total control of SAGA as from January 1st 2011.

.......and in lighter vein -  THE NOMADS/GOLF FOUNDATION "FAMILY DAY"
 - as contributed many years ago by Michael Florance.

Once upon a time. five-six-seven years ago, when the Golf Foundation was just getting on its feet in the Transvaal, the Nomads used to organise special meetings of Nomads vs. Juniors.
This was one of life's more humiliating experiences for quite a number of our members who found out that their "kind Uncle" concern for these nippers often received a very rude shake-up when the same puling infants stepped on to the tee and casually clipped their drives about a hundred yards past where "Uncle's" ball had come to rest. 
(We have memories of one Anthony Handley reeling into half-way house and trying to borrow a rupture belt after nine holes in the company of a young Jill Kennedy and an even younger Bobby Cole!)
It was therefore fortunate that, at just about the time our members were getting really red in the face, the Golf Foundation had succeeded in establishing such a circuit of tournaments for the kids  during their school  holidays that we were able to claim that the match against the Nomads was perhaps, making the programme just a little too top-heavy. At the same time this outlined the difference between a strategic withdrawal and a rabble-rout.

In its place we supplanted an annual meeting which has all the basic philosophy of banana-skin humour.... the discomfiture of someone in whose place we can all-too-clearly see ourselves. This is known as the Nomads Family Day - a meeting organised in connection with the Golf Foundation, and subsided  by Nomads, and played by Juniors in partnership with some relative - father, mother, uncle, aunt or whatever - and with our Nomads members filling in as partners with only those chickadees who fail to impress one of their nears and dears whom they can bully, persuade, cajole or coerce into playing.
With a rare sense of the original, this is always organised on the Family Day Public Holiday, competitions being run on the basic style of Nomads' play except to play off Club handicaps.
The 1967 Family Day produced a field of 120 mixed delinquents and derelicts who had a very good time indeed.
If there was any particularly remarkable feature of this year's competition it was that there was one mother-daughter and two father-son combinations  and that the handicaps of all six of them totaled 14!
Some of the golf played was outstandingly good; some of it was fair, and a lot was - merely normal, if that means anything to a Nomad reader. The one thing one learns from these youngsters is that the content of the moans of golfers does not vary with age. You hear exactly the same tale of woe from a 12/13 year-old as you do from their olders and bloody-sight worsers.
Nomads Clubs might care to think of running similar affairs in their own areas during school holidays. They are not only good fun in themselves, and serve a very good purpose, but there is a great deal the average onlooker can learn from the juniors.