TEENAGEHEAVEN
Youngsters dominate
during 2017 season.
outh Africa has a remarkably
large group of promising
young teenagers around at the
moment who have become
proven winners at the top amateur level.
Teenage prodigies have always been
part of the South African scene – think
about Dale Hayes winning at 18 on the
European Tour, and Charl Schwartzel
earning a European Tour card at the same
age – but never have there been so many
talented juniors around at the same time
who are winning at the highest level of
amateur golf.
The average age of winners on the
amateur circuit is getting younger every
year, and 2017 saw 15-year-old MartinOUR TOP 10 AMATEURS OF 2017
1 Garrick Higgo
Age 18 / Boland
Ranked No 16 in 2016
Won 3 (Cape Province,
Bobby Locke,
Harry Oppenheimer)
Top 10s 9
Stroke Avg 69.7
6 Matt Saulez
Age 20 / KZN
Ranked No 5 in 2016
Best Runner-up 3
(Northern Am,
EK, Central)
Top 10s 8
Stroke Avg 71.3
2 Malcolm Mitchell
Age 23 / KZN
Ranked No 25 in 2016
Won 2 (KZN Amateur,
Ekurhuleni Open)
Top 10s 14
Stroke Avg 70.97 Christo Lamprecht
Age 16 / Cape
Unranked in 2016
Won 1 (SA Amateur)
Top 10s 6
Stroke Avg 70.83 Kyle McClatchie
Age 20 / Ekurhuleni
Ranked No 1 in 2016
Won 3 (North West,
WP Amateur)
Top 10s 9
Stroke Avg 70.68 Jayden Schaper
Age 16 / Ekurhuleni
Unranked in 2016
Best Runner-up
(GN Silver Salver)
Top 10s 7
Stroke Avg 71.64 Wilco Nienaber
Age 17 / Free State
Unranked in 2016
Won 3 (N Cape,
GN Salver, Central)
Top 10s 5
Stroke Avg 71.29 Clayton Mansfield
Age 22 / KZN
Ranked No 42 in 2016
Won 1 (Boland)
Top 10s 7
Stroke Avg 71.65 Marco Steyn
Age 20 / Central
Gauteng
Ranked No 14 in 2016
Won 1 (Prince’s Grant)
Top 10s 8
Stroke Avg 71.010 Martin Vorster
Age 15 / Cape
Unranked in 2016
Won 1 (KZN Open)
Top 10s 4
Stroke Avg 71.9Vorster win the KZN Open at Selborne,
and Christo Lamprecht become the
youngest SA Amateur champion at
Humewood just a few weeks after his
16th birthday. Both juniors are members
at Pinnacle Point in Mossel Bay and
members of the Louis Oosthuizen
Academy.
Lamprecht was one of four South
Africans who represented the
International team in the inaugural
Junior Presidents Cup in America in
September, the others being Garrick
Higgo (18), Jayden Schaper (16) and
Luca Filippi (18).
Missing out on that team was a young
man whose sensational long-hitting this
season is already being compared to the
big guns on the PGA Tour.
Wilco Nienaber (Bloemfontein),
who turned 17 in April, won three
tournaments outside the junior ranksduring the year, including the Central
Gauteng Open at CCJ Woodmead,
where he posted a 19-under-par total
of 269. He was 18-under for the par 5s,
as none of them were outside his range
in two shots.
Higgo was 17 when he won the
Cape Province Open in February, and
18 when he claimed two further titles
at the end of the year.
The winner of the Proudfoot
Trophy – qualifying rounds for the
SA Amateur – was 17-year-old Chris
Woollam from Gowrie Farm. And
another 17-year-old champion was
Deon Germishuys (Strand) at the
Southern Cape Open.
The youngest player in the top 50
of the Golf Digest Rankings at the
end of the year was Casey Jarvis (34th),
from State Mines, who turned 14 at
the end of July.S
ERNEST BLIGNAULT • JOHAN RYNNERS GOLFDIGEST.CO.ZA / JANUARY 2018 / 73