Vodacom Origins of Golf Sishen - The Lowdown

The first event of this season’s Vodacom Origins of Golf takes us to the Northern Cape. The last tournament in the region (it was in the Free State last year) was claimed by Garth Mulroy in Parys, but before then, Hennie du Plessis defeated Ockie Strydom in 2017 in Sishen, this year’s venue, for his maiden Sunshine Tour title.

This week we are back in the iron ore capital of the Northern Cape province in Kathu for the same tournament. The first of the five Vodacom events tees off from Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 August. The prize fund has been boosted to R1-million for this year. The new winner will be crowned after 54 holes.

Out of five players who have won before, Jacques Blaauw, who won in 2016, and Trevor Fisher Jnr, who won in 2012, are the only former champions on the field. The other players who won the tournament at Sishen before are Du Plessis in 2017, Jaco van Zyl (2010) and Adilson da Silva (2011).

Local resident Theunis Spangenberg holds the course record with 61 in 2005. (he’s playing on an inviation this year).

The format:

54 holes of stroke play. After 36 holes there will be a cut to the leading 40 professionals and ties.

The field:

120

Defending champion:

Garth Mulroy (10-under 206 at Parys Golf Club). He is not coming to defend.

The course:

The Sishen Golf Club is situated on the outskirts of the town of Kathu in the Northern Cape Province. It has truly a unique setting in which to play a round of golf – the course winds its way through a 500-hectare Camelthorn forest on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. The golf course was designed by the golf course architect Robert Grimsdell, but he, unfortunately, did not live to see it completed. From 1979 when it was officially opened to 1995 the golf club was called the Iscor Golf Club, and in 1995 the golf club was named the Sishen Golf Club.

Kathu means ‘town under the trees’, after the Camelthorn forest it is situated in. The phrase “the town under the trees” was coined by an engineer working in the town in the early 1990s as part of a tourist marketing drive. The meaning of the word “Kathu” has also anecdotally been attributed to a porridge brewed by the local population from the powder found in the pods of the Camelthorn trees.

The course is 6,450 meters long.

Form player:

Michael Palmer has not missed a cut in his six starts this season with 28th being his lowest finish. He made two top-10s in the process, including a fifth-place finish at the previous event, the Royal Swazi Spa Challenge. The Bryanston Country Club representative will go all out this week in search for his second win on Tour.

Sentimental pick:

Ockie Strydom was denied an opportunity to claim his maiden win on Tour by Hennie du Plessis in a play-off after they finished tied on 12-under 204 in 2017. That defeat was his eighth runner-up finish in his career at that point, and he has since added three more to that list. Even though he’s had his ups and downs this season so far, with four missed cuts in seven starts, Strydom still boasts a second-spot finish from the Sun City Challenge in June.

A veteran of the game, Strydom knows any week could be his, and, going back to a place of yet another close call in his pursuit for glory, fortunes might change for the better for him in Kathu.

The bolter:

Still in his rookie season, Kyle Barker is the bolter for this one. A solid ball striker, the 21-year old has got the game to compete at the highest level and the fourth-place finish at the Sun City Challenge is but a signal of what he can produce.

He has missed a single cut up to this point – at the Zanaco Masters – and has not finished lower than 46th this season. Barker has shown he can get the low numbers when it’s that time, and a case in point is the opening round 66 he produced in Sun City. That was not all, however, as his first-round 67 and final-round 68 in the Royal Swazi Spa Challenge have also shown.

He’s had a taste of what it’s like contending for a win and that should spur him on further, and possibly even inspire him to a victory in his rookie season. That, however, will depend on whether he gets himself into that position in Sishen and if he can hold on till the end.

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