Vusi Voetsek: Bumbling Blitzboks are ‘out of sight, out of mind’

We all know the saying “Out of sight, out of mind”.

Well, it doesn’t only refer to friends and family, but in sport as well.

I don’t know about you, but I think a number of South African sports fans are feeling this way about our Blitzboks and supposed world class golfers.

Blitzboks

I don’t know what is going on, but I can’t recall a time when our national Sevens team was so poor.

I have written about them before, after their shocking performances at the World Rugby Sevens Series events in Los Angeles and Vancouver, but despite doing introspection and trying to get to the bottom of those performances, nothing seems to have changed.

In Hong Kong and Singapore in the last two rounds the Blitzboks also crashed out of contention early on — and suffered a first ever defeat to Spain — and they are now well out of the running in the race to be crowned champions.

Yes, there have been a plethora of injuries in the squad, robbing the Blitzboks of many senior players and making life as hard as possible for new coach Sandile Ngocobo, but it is still not good enough.

Something has gone drastically wrong and needs urgent attention.

Like I said earlier, “out of sight, out of mind” — the Blitzboks are currently not performing and aren’t being noticed and it seems the fans couldn’t care less. Sadly, that’s what happens when a team starts losing; people lose interest.

The same happened with the Lions many years ago, before they turned things around and played in three straight Super Rugby finals. Currently, the Cheetahs are in that position — almost a forgotten side.

If it were the Boks, or even the Proteas, performing so poorly there would be a huge outcry and jobs would be on the line, but for some reason, the Blitzboks are getting away without too much criticism.

Quite odd, I’d say.

SA golfers

South Africa’s golfers are also “out of sight, out of mind”.

Now that Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace and Dean Burmester, and a few others like Justin Harding and Hennie du Plessis play their golf on the LIV Tour their performances are not really seen and no one quite knows what they are up to or are concerned about their form.

Well, the reality is South African golf is not in a good space at the moment when it comes to players winning around the world.

In last week’s Masters golf tournament, Oosthuizen withdrew with an unspecified injury after performing poorly, while Schwartzel finished in a tie for 50th. Besides amateur Aldrich Potgieter, who also missed the cut, they were the only two South Africans in the field.

Yes, Schwartzel and Grace won last year on the LIV Tour, but does that count?

When last was a South African in contention on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour?

Come on guys, we need to get back to winning ways in world golf. Our last Major champion was … Ernie Els, who won the Open in 2012 — that’s over 10 years and 40 Majors ago.