In spite of the coldness of the weather, nothing of the golf festival was frozen. It began explosively aboard the John Benn on the lagoon; one of our many tourism icons in Knysna. This opening was followed by two, jam-packed days of golf, developing friendships and a little golfing rivalry between Reddam House team 2, who ran away with the competition, and the other competing teams. The Reddam House team was awarded the “yellow caps” to indicate the leading team for the day. Needless to say, all the teams began aiming for yellow caps on day two.
We played on two different courses – Ou Baai and Goose Valley – which offered tricky greens; long fairways and an obstinate and cooling wind – gusting on and off. The scores were impressive. Over the first two days, we won a “closest to the pin” with Stephanie Perkins virtually achieving a hole in one; while Michael Schutz battled with Martin Schouten of Bridgehouse for the longest drive. Michael won this dual on one of the two days. On the Saturday, we changed the pace and went to explore Plettenberg Bay and its environs. We explored Monkey Land and Birds of Eden: laughing at the antics of the various monkeys and gasping at the strong colours of the Loeries and the powerful beak of the Toucan. The flamingo’s teased a few of the visiting group and we all left with great photos of the many birds.
The tour ended with a final round of golf at Goose Valley. The wind played as well and carefully moved balls both left and right of their desired landing point. Reddam House 2 won the overall festival with Bridgehouse 1 team ending on the best gross scores and Chesterhouse playing the most golf. Another great achievement was an albatross scored by Tiaan Strydom of Bridgehouse in his opening game.
The festival was a resounding success and another is already being planned for next year. Our sincere thanks to Chris Holden from SWINGFIT for his help in the planning of the event and the managing of the results for each leg of the festival.
Report: Melanie Cloete
