SA OPEN:THE EARLY YEARS

Last updated: 11th December 2007

The South African Open has generally been regarded as the game's second oldest Open after The (British) Open Championship itself.

The belief of many was that the SA Open had roots going back as far as 1893, but in truth, it has recently been revealed, the first truly national SA Open played for by professionals and amateurs alike only took place in 1903 at the Port Elizabeth Golf Club and was won by Laurie Waters, the professional at Johannesburg Golf Club.

Like many of the sporting codes practiced in South Africa today, golf was brought to the southern tip of Africa by the British Army and was first played in South Africa on a make-shift course at the Wynberg Military Camp outside of Cape Town.

The Cape Golf Club, founded in 1885 and later to be called the Royal Cape Golf Club (1910), was the country's first real golf club and is considered to be the true cradle of South African golf.

It was mainly from here that the game quickly spread across the region's colonial provinces, with some of the other late 1880s clubs being the Maritzburg, Harrismith and Klerksdorp Golf Clubs.

In 1892 it was decided that there were enough clubs and playing members to hold a national championship as part of the Kimberley Exhibition.

It was a match play championship with no professionals and was seen as the forerunner of the SA Amateur which is still very much alive today and now involves a stroke play qualifying event as do most of the World's other national amateur championships

Two British teaching professionals, Walter Day and Jack Johnston, attended the second national championship in 1893 at Port Elizabeth, but it was decided they should play in a separate event from the amateurs.

It was more of an exhibition match than anything else but was loosely termed the SA Open

Between 1893 and 1902, Day won the title six times, and Johnston twice. There were two other professionals, JW Stewart and WD Moore, who played during that period, but they were never a factor in this annual contest and it wasn't until 1903, after a further influx of British professionals, that it was finally decided to hold the first SA Open stroke play championship.

Waters, the first winner, was a professional at Johannesburg Golf Club and was as one of the men who was to have the greatest influence on the development of South African golf.

After serving an apprenticeship with the legendary Old Tom Morris at St Andrews, he came to South Africa in 1896 in an attempt to improve his ill health and went on to live to the ripe old age 85.

Waters was to win four SA Opens, but by far, his greatest contribution to South African golf came in the form of designing golf courses, teaching people to play, and showing locals the craft of clubmaking.

One of the courses he helped design is the Durban Country Club , which down the years has remained one of South Africa's finest.

Today, the SA Golf Association runs the SAA Open together with the Sunshine Tour and European Tour, but in those early days there was no controlling body.

Each championship was organised and run by the host club.

The SA Golf Union, as it used to be known, was only launched in 1909 at a meeting of the captains of the various clubs.

SOME QUICK FACTS

Most wins: 13 (Gary Player between 1956 - 1981)

Most consecutive wins: five - Bobby Locke (1937-40 and 45 and 46); Gary Player (1965-69)

Youngest winner: Bobby Locke (17 in 1935)

Oldest winner: Sid Brews (53 in 1952)

Lowest winning total: 267 (Tony Johnstone 1993 - Durban Country Club)

Lowest 18 hole score: 62 (John Bland 1993 - Durban Country Club)

Biggest victory margin: 20 shots (George Fotheringham 1914 - Royal Cape Golf Club)

Winners in 4 decades: Sid Brews (1925, 30, 49 and 52); Gary Player (1956, 60, 72 and 81)

Last amateur to win: Denis Hutchinson (1959)

Lowest 72 hole score by an Amateur: 282 Denis Hutchinson (1959); Ian Hutchings (1987); Ernie Els (1989); Hennie Otto (1997