People

'Mbeki magic' at Presidents Cup

Alec Hogg

28 November 2003

Although nearly a billion people saw it on TV, you had to be there to really appreciate the moment when South African President Thabo Mbeki spontaneously handed his place of honour to the last of his white predecessors, former president FW de Klerk.

Mbeki had been called upon to officially close the hugely successful 2003 Presidents Cup, where the world's leading golfers (outside Europe) took on the best from the US.

For a time, Mbeki was all human being, no hint of the politician. And the gesture did more for global perceptions of the progress in our Rainbow Nation than any advertising campaign.

Instead of grabbing the podium, he fetched De Klerk from four rows back and handed over the microphone to the man he described as having started the South African miracle. De Klerk did his bit by joking about having a lower golf handicap than his successor, and ended his few words by issuing the challenge to "keep the miracle alive".

De Klerk received a standing ovation. But it was the relaxed, confident Mbeki whose magnanimity really captured the crowd's hearts. It was lump-in-the-throat stuff to witness a sporting crowd cheering the SA President with Mexican waves and rousing "Ole's".

To make it all the more special, this happened at the closing ceremony of what in terms of global interest was probably the biggest sporting event yet hosted by the country.

Gary Player's perseverance, Hasso Plattner's chequebook
Like every successful project, the Presidents Cup didn't just happen. The hand of South African golfing great Gary Player was evident all over.

Son Marc told me that Player needed every bit of his famed tenacity to bring the event to fruition: "He fought pretty much everyone you could imagine to get it here. You have no idea the obstacles he had to get past. In the end it was only my Dad's perseverance and Hasso Plattner's chequebook that made it happen."

Plattner, the fabulously wealthy co-founder and until recently chairman of global software group SAP (named for wife Sabina Ann, who lives permanently in SA nowadays), is turning out to be a fabulous friend for the country.

He has an affinity for the Southern Cape Coast shared by so many Germans. As a nation, they are comfortably the biggest investors in the region, having bought billions of rands worth of property and holiday homes in the region's seemingly ever growing plethora of golf estates.

None more so than Plattner. Apart from the hundreds of millions pumped into the Fancourt Estate, the stretch of manicured fairways and greens where Ernie Els and Tiger Woods went head-to-head on that memorable Sunday cost a cool R100-million. Acknowledged as the toughest test of golf in the country and simply called The Links, its Scottish seaside appearance was shaped from a flat piece of marshland by ubiquitous Gary Player's golf course development company.

The local newspaper reckons the Presidents Cup directly injected over R150-million into the Southern Cape region. The prestigious golf course is sure to bring in a lot more in the years ahead as The Links will be one of the most exclusive stretches of real estate in the world, becoming primarily a members-only club.

An up-front membership fee of US$70 000 plus a further R30 000 annual subscription puts The Links out of reach of your garden variety hacker. Even then, wealth is no guarantee, as prospective members need to be personally invited by Plattner. To date there are 24 members. Although the list is not public, one can safely assume the bulk are globally influential persons who might otherwise never visit our shores.

Mr Bush, you'll have to move
Back to the Presidents Cup. The final two days produced many highlights in a golfing sense. But, for me, the most memorable moment of the tournament came from an entirely different quarter, and involved one of the more famous spectators, former US President George Bush (Snr).

Like any golf fan, Bush was clearly keen to get the best possible view. But unlike the rest of us, he felt entitled to share the structure erected for television cameras next to the 7th green.

No sooner had Bush Snr settled in than the hard-working SABC cameraman alongside spotted him and shooed the former leader of the Free World away. That forced Bush to clamber back down the steep temporary steps accompanied by chuckles among dozens of us watching from a legal position 10 metres away.

To his credit, Bush took the instruction in good humour. Still, be sure there's one cameraman who has a wonderful tale to tell his grandchildren one day.

As do all the others who saw up close how South Africa can put on an event that the entire country should be proud of.



	'And I smiled, because South Africans are creating a new dawn every day.' President Thabo Mbeki in the Brand South Africa television campaign of the International Marketing Council