Making my first cut on tour

Surviving Africa Ep 2 - my first week back in Africa

So there I was, standing in the freezing cold at home in my back garden duffing & blading chips, hitting the odd shot into my nett, waiting to see how many people fancied joining my prestigious #100Club. As it turns out, 39 people really enjoyed watching me shank it out of a ditch. If you haven’t seen it yet check out my #100Club Promo video here: I’m half way there so far !

There have been a lot of things happening in the world to try & push me away from my much anticipated return to South Africa for the Sunshine Tour restart.

November - I’d just lost my part time job, then next thing you know Matt Hancock announces that South Africa has the most apocalyptic variant of this virus currently known in the world.

And by February he announces that anyone going there has to Quarentine on return & pay £1750 if you’d ever like to come back.

And I’m not going to lie, it seemed absolutely impossible to get out the country. In my dads words, ‘Ben you’ve got absolutely no chance of going back this year, write it off and play europro/2020 tours’.

Unfortunately I have a habit of never giving in too easily, so here I am, sat in an apartment almost 2 weeks into a 10 week spell out here in sunny Johannesburg. Happy days...

With half the budget of what I needed, I booked a last minute flight, drove all the way down to Heathrow, got all the way to check in. Which was when Turkish Airlines decided to decline my NHS PCR covid result. I had to rebook another flight two days later paid for private PCR test. Did two nights in a 5 star Ibis hotel with room service and eventually got there 1 1/2 days before the first qualifier. £700 down the pan and I hadn’t even arrived yet. The targets now become 72!

Royal Johannesburg & Kensington was the venue for the first event. Limited field to 72 with it being a Pro Am. And as you’d expect, 9 weeks of a lockdown with golf courses closed back home. Harold Hookspin and Sammy Sideways returned with a reasonable effort of +6. DNQ

As I’d finished my round not only had I not qualified I also found out that my name was not on the entry list for the next week. ‘The Players Championship’, to which I was told that I never even entered and the only way I could get in was by a top 10 in the week I couldn’t even play.

Thankfully after pestering the commissioner of the Sunshine Tour Thomas Abt, explaining the difficulties and investment I’d made getting over they granted me a very late invite into the event. I WAS BUZZING.

Even though I was guaranteed to play, I had absolutely no game the previous week but I decided the only way I could get my game fast tracked in time was by getting up to play 18 at sunrise (5am) and practice all the way till it got dark around 6.30pm.

I hadn’t managed to shoot anything under par at all until the event but I knew that I was starting to get a sense of direction back. I worked tirelessly to try and adjust my short game to the grass with the different grains on and around the greens. And thankfully my hard work paid off.

I turned up on the Tuesday of the event in complete shock of how well run the tour was. There was a players lounge, current and ex European tour players on the putting green with their coaches, super sport live tv coverage with a tented village and camera towers on every hole.
Brand spanking new Titleist Pro V1s to hit on the range. I was given 4 dozen tour use balls with 6 gloves. There was a stand behind the range with a guy offering to change your grips and check the loft and lies of my clubs.
I honestly felt like I was about to play in my first ever EuropeanTour event.
I cannot speak highly enough of how well run the event was. Or how well prepared the golf course was either. I don’t know why I had such low expectations but this definitely proved how big a deal it was getting my card just over a year ago.

Brand New caddy for the week too. Tour Caddy named Swenky. Caddied for a lot of big players over the years including Ernie Els, Beef and numerous others.

Now I had no expectations for the upcoming event (Dainfern Country Estate GC) but I knew that making the top 40 cut from a 156 field was going to be an extremely difficult task. I decided my game plan for the week was to not go at any of the flags and try and score well on the par 5s.

This plan seemed to work as I chipped in 3 times in the first two rounds and was 8 under par total on the 12th hole of my 2nd round. To which I saw a leaderboard say that 38 players were tied at -6 under, which meant that -7 was going to be the cut mark. I was bricking myself. I missed a 1ft par return putt on 13 and duffed a chip on 15 after a fluffed wedge approach shot. Back to -6 total I managed to find the green on the tough 16th but left my 1st putt 15ft short. I had never wanted to make a cut so much in my life, and all the competitive rust was definitely showing. Thankfully I grew a pair and railed my 2nd putt straight into the middle of the cup. Boom baby 💥. My caddy Swenks said ‘THAT was BIG PUTT’. I managed to then hit the fairway down the last (par 5) and put my 5 iron approach onto the green in 2 to about 12ft. Shot of the week. I finished with a round of 67 to make the cut by one.

My team of 100 clubbers obviously all went bezerk and my socials all exploded which all added to the adrenal come down of what I’d managed to achieve and overcome in a week. I was obviously delighted with my scores. But unfortunately I was still 9 behind the leaders on a tough golf course that was very similar to playing Moor Allerton GC in the UK. Very grainy and slopey fast greens but lots of doglegs and positional tee shots. 
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I was so pumped up from the day that Saturdays round afterwards was a struggle and I didn’t have the same mental capacity I had in the days previous. I did get to play with ex tour player Keith Horne though which was great fun.


After the round I went straight to bed for 2 hours. Rested up. And went out again on the Sunday for the final round. I played very similar again but didn’t really hole anything all the way round until hitting the 17th green (Par 4) in one and smashing a 317 metre drive to a back right pin to 15ft. EAGLE  . I had lots of anger with me from 3 putting the 16th hole. But it was slightly downwind and had 287 metres to fly it all the way onto the front edge and roll it towards the pin. 

​I walked up to the 18th thinking how funny it would be to go Double eagles after the week I’d had. But unfortunately I left my 20ft eagle attempt on the front lip of the hole. 
Hey Ho, a round of 4 under 67 to take me to 10 under total for 4 rounds in my first competition back and first one ever on the main sunshine tour was for me an incredible achievement.

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