GEORGE NEWS - The Am-Am played at Kingswood Golf Estate on Sunday, 6 March, was very well received, both by the junior players and the many guests who took the time to join KeNako on this special day.

The Fourball Alliance format meant that every team of four included a junior golfer, both boys and girls, from several countries. This included some of South Africa’s top junior players. Executives from as far afield as Johannesburg, Nelspruit and Cape Town travelled to George to play in the Am-Am with the junior golfers.

The winning team was an interesting mix of people. Austria’s Robin Goger (16) was the junior player in the fourball who played alongside Jan Swanepoel (neuro-logist: Neurocare Group, Cape Town), Neels Els (father of Ernie and a competitive golfer himself), and ex-Springbok prop, Marius Hurter. The team managed 48 points to win comfortably by 2 shots. In September 2009 Robin became the youngest ever player to play in an official European Tour event, aged 14, a record previously held by Sergio Garcia. Robin played extremely well in the Am-Am, making 5 birdies for his team.

Although the shotgun start at 09:00 was slightly delayed when some locals forgot that the Kingswood course layout had been changed for the tournament and they mistakenly drove to the incorrect tees, the spirit remained excellent.
Some wonderful play was in evi-dence. On the tough par 3 3rd Hole, normally Kingswood’s 11th, Julian Ballman from Germany almost holed out with a 6 iron to win one of the two Nearest the Pin Canon Camera prizes sponsored by the local division of Canon. David Kovari from Hungary was the second lucky winner of a Canon Camera on Hole 11.


Just before their shotgun tee off at Sunday’s Am-Am at Kingswood, John Argyle, Daniela Lendl (daughter of tennis legend, Ivan), Julian Ballmann, and Ron Boon (Kenako Academy Chairperson) posed for some photos. More stories on page 86. Photo: LeeAnne Pratt