SA’s wait for next Major continues, but golf future is not so bleak

It was another riveting week of the Open Championship, the 151st playing of the golf major.

But sadly, once again, no South African got into the mix of contenders, though young amateur Christo Lamprecht hogged the headlines after the opening round.

The 22-year-old, who plays for Georgia Tech in the USA and is ranked third in the world amateur rankings, shared the lead after the first round thanks to a scintillating five-under-par 66.

Though Lamprecht couldn’t keep up that high standard of golf over the next three days, he was the only amateur to make the cut and earned the silver medal for his performance at Royal Liverpool. He has announced himself to the world and I am sure he will be back to challenge another time.

Rising stars

South African golf is currently blessed with a number of young, rising stars, and thankfully so, because it seems as if this country’s next Major winner will be one of them.

Once again, as has been the case for a while now, none of South Africa’s big guns was able to produce the goods this last week, even though 10 players from this country made it into the field.

Besides Lamprecht, Thriston Lawrence, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Louis Oosthuizen made the halfway cut, but never threatened the leaders.

As has been mentioned in this column before, Lawrence and Bezuidenhout have the games to be Major contenders, and have time and age on their side, so hopefully we’ll still see big things from them in the future. And there are others, too, such a Casey Jarvis and Aldrich Potgieter and a bunch of other promising youngsters, too.

Oosthuizen has been inconsistent, while fellow Major winner Charl Schwartzel has also been up and down and missed the cut at Royal Liverpool. Senior two-time Open champion Ernie Els also struggled and didn’t make it to the weekend.

Ockie Strydom, Branden Grace, Martin Rohwer and Kyle Barker also couldn’t make it to Saturday and Sunday, though they would have enjoyed their time at the Open.

Golf is a hard game, and it demands consistency to be successful, and that is something that our players have been lacking. The SA golfing picture might not be too pretty right now, but let’s hope a change in fortunes is around the corner.