Sport

Seniors spice up Player Invitational

20 November 2009

Champions Tour competitors always play a big role in the Gary Player Invitational, and this year's event will include some popular senior drawcards, besides tournament host Player himself.

The event takes place at The Links at Fancourt in George from 26 to 29 November.

Besides Grand Slam winner Player, John Bland, Bertus Smit, Vincent Tshabalala and Bobby Jones will fly the South African flag, while Scotsman Bill Longmuir will add international flavour along with some top-notch Zimbabwean players who were real forces when they campaigned on the Sunshine Tour.

Mark McNulty

Mark McNulty, formerly of Zimbabwe but now an Irish citizen, has an enviable record on South African soil, including a sensational year in 1986 when he captured seven Sunshine Tour titles and the Nedbank Challenge at Sun City.

In the same year he finished in the top 10 on the European Tour's Order of Merit for the first time, placing sixth. McNulty was one of the leading players on the European Tour from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, and cracked the top 10 of the Official World Golf Rankings for 83 weeks from 1987 to 1992.

Since joining the Champions Tour, he has won seven times and, added to his regular Tour victories, McNulty has 61 victories in his career.

His first full seniors' season in 2004 was highly successful with three wins (including the Charles Schwab Cup Championship) and a seventh-place finish on the money list.

In 2007, he won the JELD-WEN Tradition, one of the five major championships on the over-50 tour. His seventh win came this year at the Principal Charity Classic with a playoff win over Nick Price and Fred Funk.

Tony Johnstone

Like his former countryman, Zimbabwe's Tony Johnstone has also enjoyed plenty of success in South Africa.

He has won 17 times on the Sunshine Tour, including winning the South African Open twice, and recorded six victories on the European Tour. In 2004, Johnstone was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and thought he would never play golf again, but a revolutionary drug treatment appears to have put his MS into remission and he’s back on the golf course.

Johnstone made his European Senior Tour debut shortly after turning 50 in 2006. Two years later he won his first title at the Jersey Seniors Classic and added victory number two at the 2009 Travis Perkins Senior Masters.

An accomplished golf broadcaster, Johnstone is also noted for his short game and topped the European Tour's statistics in that category in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

Bill Longmuir

British golfer Bill Longmuir also brings a fine pedigree into the Gary Player Invitational.

A regular on the European tour for 16 years, he made the top 90 on the Order of Merit every year from 1976 to 1990, with a best ranking of 24th in 1982. In 1979, Longmuir won the Tooting Bec Cup having shot a 65, the lowest round by a British player in the Open Championship at Royal Lytham.

In 2003, Longmuir joined the senior circuit in Europe, where he has won regularly over the last six years.

In his rookie year, he captured the De Vere PGA Seniors Championship and Ryder Cup Wales Seniors Open and finished runner-up on that year's Order of Merit. In 2004, he added the Charles Church Scottish Seniors Open and Mobile Cup to his tally. The Scandinavian Senior Open followed in 2005 and the Midas English Seniors Open in 2007.

Longmuir triumphed at the 2008 DGM Barbados Open after a scintillating final round at Royal Westmoreland Golf Club. The victory marked the first of seven top-five finishes that saw him finish the 2009 season in fifth place on the Order of Merit – his best campaign since 2004.

To date, Longmuir has four top-10 finishes and is ranked 33rd in Europe, but he has been splitting his time with the Champions Tour since qualifying in 2006.

Bertus Smit

Smit clinched his first Senior Tour win at the Ryder Cup Wales Seniors Open after a return trip to Qualifying School last year, having finished just outside the top-50.

The South African, who won more than 100 Open titles as an amateur and represented Western Province from 1979 to 1994, was also a successful wheat farmer for nearly 30 years, but in 2001, Smit packed it all in to follow his dreams.

He featured prominently on the mini-circuit in the United States, topping the Sunbelt Senior Professional Golf Tour money list in 2002 and 2003. He joined the European Senior Tour in 2005 with a second place at Qualifying School and enjoyed a superb rookie year in 2006, finishing in the top-10 in eight of his 16 starts.

Bobby Jones

Having played in 2007 as a senior professional, and last year as a business man alongside John Bland, Adilson da Silva and Shaun Pollock, Bobby Jones is no stranger to the Gary Player Invitational.

Born in Krugersdorp at the end of the Second World War, he made his entry into golf as a caddie at Bryanston Country Club and by the age of 10, was already a competent golfer. In 1978, he turned professional and competed on the Sunshine Tour for the next decade until he was financially unable to continue life as a touring professional.

Jones, who is also the owner of the Observatory Golf Club driving range and Pro Shop, which he opened over a decade ago, resumed his passion full time upon entering the senior ranks and currently campaigns on the senior circuit at home.

Vincent Tshabalala

Vincent Tshabalala is one of South Africa's greatest black golfers and has enjoyed success on both the European & European Senior Tours. He is also a two-time winner of the Gary Player Invitational; in 2004, he won the Betterball competition with Ernie Els, and repeated that success with Tim Clark in 2005.

Tshabalala, who was not able to play on the Southern African Tour in his prime, gained entry to international tournaments with the assistance of Player and in 1976 he won the European Tour's French Open.

His career was curtailed by injury, but in his comeback in the over-50 ranks, he finished in the top-20 on the European Seniors Tour Order of Merit four times in the 1990s.

Major winners

Reigning Masters champion Angel Cabrera, double US Open winner Retief Goosen, as well as Sunshine Tour regulars Omar Sandys and Thomas Aiken are among the eight regular Tour professionals that will tee it up alongside their senior counterparts.

The past decade of the Gary Player Invitational has proved that the senior players are still highly competitive, with the older campaigners often carrying their regular Tour partners. And it is fun to indulge in the nostalgia of seeing the greats of the past showing off their skills against the best of today.

Tickets for the Gary Player Invitational are available from Computicket at a cost of R75 each.

SAinfo reporter