He was invited to play as a senior professional golfer in the Gary Player Invitational at Zimbali Country Club in Durban mid-November.
The format includes only 8 fourballs with each fourball made up of a regular touring professional golfer, a senior professional golfer, a celebrity guest and a business person.
Wessels acquitted himself extremely well, playing alongside Jesper Parnevick in the betterball medal professional competition. They finished the two days in 10 under par, which was an excellent performance.
The tournament was won by George Coet-zee and Mark James at 19 under par. Coetzee is a rising young star in the golf world, whilst James was captain of the European Ryder Cup team in 1999 and won the Ford Seniors Players Championships, one of the "Majors" on the Seniors Tour in 2004.
Of interest is that when Wessels won the SA PGA Championship at the Wanderers in 2001 he beat the self same James in a play-off to win the title.
In the team event Wessels played alongside Jesper Parnevick, ex-Springbok rugby player Breyten Paulse and Ron Boon, chairman of the KeNako Academy in George. The team had an excellent tournament and finished second at minus 34 in the fourball alliance competition played over 36 holes.
In the team competition the best 2 nett scores on each hole counted.
Wessels also had the privilege of being selected for a live television interview and he had the opportunity to talk not only about his life since retiring from the European Tour and the South African Tour, but also the chance to mention some of the excellent work being done by KeNako’s community related programmes which are making such a difference to those individuals receiving assistance from the team at KeNako.
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Ron Boon, Jesper Parnevick, Breyten Paulse and Roger Wessels (from left) finished second in the Fourball Team Competition at the Gary Player Invitational played at Zimbali.
