Hess echoes thanks from pros, caddies for financial support

When Sunshine Tour professional Jacquin Hess opened his email on Friday morning, there was a sense of relief when he read about the financial aid programme the tour has instituted for its professionals and registered caddies during the Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown.

When his fiancée saw the figure Hess would receive as a monthly stipend commensurate with his Sunshine Tour category for the months of April and May, she smiled broadly.

“We have a six-month-old baby and this is going to make a massive difference,” said Hess from his home in Robertson in the Western Cape, where, like every other Sunshine Tour professional and caddie, he has joined the rest of South Africa in lockdown.

The Sunshine Tour suspended all of its activities last month.

Reliant upon tournaments for his income, Hess faced an uncertain future as he waited for world golf to restart.

Then, on Thursday, the Sunshine Tour announced the details of a comprehensive financial relief programme for South African men’s and women’s professional golf.

The tour will pay a monthly stipend to its member professionals on a scale according to their various categories of membership for this month and next month. The Women’s Professional Golf Association, in partnership with the Sunshine Ladies Tour, announced a similar financial programme for the top 25 South African professionals on the Sunshine Ladies Tour.

Read: Sunshine Tour joins global golf pause

The tour has also committed to paying a monthly stipend this month and next month to all the caddies who are registered with the SA Caddie Association and who have been active in the 2019/20 Sunshine Tour season.

“It shows great leadership and we’re very grateful for it,” said Hess, who admitted the time he’d been forced to spend away from golf had been hard on him.

“It’s been very frustrating. I’ve been exercising and keeping busy around the house, but it hit me really hard on day six of the lockdown. I think I had massive withdrawal symptoms then, because I usually go to the golf course every single day.”

As a player currently outside the top 100 on the Sunshine Tour’s Official Order of Merit, Hess said the positive side of this lockdown had been the time he’d had to plan for a return into that top 100 and fully exempt status on the tour.

“It’s been very interesting for me to see what other pros around the world do.

"We don’t often see that about each other when we’re playing, but in this time, I’ve seen the home gym set-ups and practice facilities they’ve got, and realised I needed to raise my game there. I’ve also been thinking about how I can have an impact on the game.

"I love the golf clinics we do at tour events with the SA Golf Development Board kids, and I’d like to do more of that. So it’s been good to focus on those areas of my career and set some goals.”

As much as Hess is grateful for the financial aid he’s receiving, he’s in no doubt that the tour caddies will need it even more.

“This support for them is so important because the majority of tour caddies don’t have full-time contracts. They work from week to week at tournaments, so this is massive for them. They also have children and families to care for.”

Hess may have lost the ability to get out and play the game he loves for now, but he certainly hasn’t lost his sense of humour.

Reflecting on what it will be like when he tees it up in a tournament again when world golf resumes, he joked: “By then, I’ll be so good at washing dishes I might become a professional dish washer instead.”

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