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The Gary Player Country Club golf course is eerily quiet.
Even the wild animals that usually stick to the fringes of the course, which borders the Pilanesberg National Park, have now wandered closer. Some antelope are starting to graze on the lawns around the swimming pools at Sun City. It’s a far cry from the usual hustle and bustle at the resort, which reaches its peak during the Nedbank Golf Challenge.
The next few weeks would normally see Ken Payet, tournament director of the Nedbank Golf Challenge, and his team begin the massive infrastructure build for “Africa’s Major”.
But, with the national lockdown still in place due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, as well as the uncertainty surrounding the resumption of live sport, everything is on hold.
From his office at Sun City, Payet has been spending every day involved in urgent negotiations with sponsors and their partners, the European Tour, regarding the need to find a new date for the Nedbank Golf Challenge, following the announcement that the Masters would now be played in the same week as South African golf’s showpiece tournament.
The global pandemic has led to a scheduling dilemma for all of the major golf tours.
The Nedbank Golf Challenge is in the fortunate position of having available weeks at the end of the year into which it can be moved. One week, in particular, has already been identified and will be announced soon.
In one sense, the closer to the end of the year the tournament is played, the better for Payet and his team.
“We’ve lost several weeks from a planning perspective, so more time will be beneficial for us,” he said.
“But we still don’t know how long the current restrictions will go on for, or what they will be regarding mass sports events in the future.”
According to Payet, a Nedbank Golf Challenge played behind closed doors – in other words, with no fans attending – is not an option.
“We won’t have an event behind closed doors. It goes against the spirit of the tournament. This has always been a huge social gathering. That’s what we’ve always set out to achieve with the Nedbank Golf Challenge as a major corporate hospitality event.
“If that were the [only option] because of ongoing health restrictions around mass gatherings, we’d cancel this year’s tournament. We also wouldn’t push the tournament out to January or February because that’s simply not a suitable time for the event,” said Payet.
“At the moment, the European Tour is considering hosting multiple tournaments on its schedule in the same week. Our priority is always having the Nedbank Golf Challenge played the week before the Race to Dubai’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship.”
For now, though, it’s a waiting game for Payet and his team.
The Gary Player Country Club is also quiet and expectant, waiting for the return of the world’s best golfers to its fairways.
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