Jock of the Bushveld barks with pride once more

The 56th Jock of the Bushveld Amateur Golf Tournament was hosted by Mbombela Golf Club from May 5 to 11 with great success. Once more hundreds of golfers took the course by storm.

An annual tradition and a permanent fixture of the Lowveld golfing calendar, the Jock has been held every year without fail since its inception in 1968. As a result it has become something of a pilgrimage for some golfers to make to Mbombela Golf Club for the Jock tournament.

Reputed to be the largest amateur golf tournament of its kind in the world, roughly 800 golfers participate in the Jock every year, playing about 2 000 rounds of golf over the seven days. It equates to seven days of non-stop, full-field golfing action at Mbombela Golf Club.

While golfers are competitive by nature, winning isn’t necessarily the name of the game at the Jock. Over the half century that it’s been held, countless friendships have been forged on the greens of Mbombela Golf Club. Friendships that are permanent in that they’re rekindled every year when each party returns to the Jock.

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This is, therefore, ultimately the presiding theme for a week in early May every year, which in 2024 started on Sunday May 5.
As per tradition, the 56th Jock of the Bushveld Amateur Golf Tournament kicked off with the Jock Open – 36 holes of golf, where the golfer with the lowest gross at the end of the day is crowned the winner. This year top prize went to Corné Olivier, who carded two 18-hole rounds of 71 to finish level par for the day on 142.

There were unique competitions on Monday and Tuesday too, which didn’t contribute to the Jock’s overall order of merit. From Wednesday onwards the competitions adopted the individual medal Stableford format, and golfers began throwing their hat into the ring for the overall Jock prize. The daily competitions were competed across A- and B-divisions, while the overall competition was decided by one unified order of merit.

Each golfer’s three best scores would be the ticket that bought them the chance to win the 2024 Jock Trophy. So, if you wanted to give yourself the best possible chance of winning you would play all four days from Wednesday to Saturday, giving yourself a fall-back round if you play badly on one of the days.

Rudolf Broderick, from Hartbeespoort, took full advantage of this, playing his best three rounds from Wednesday to Friday, which ultimately proved to be enough for him to walk away with the Jock’s top prize. Scores of 42, 42 and 35 saw him finish on 119 for the week.

He narrowly edged out Mbombela local Warrick Morgan on count-out, who finished on 119 points as well. Chalmers Pagiwa was the best-placed A-division golfer, finishing 13th overall on 110 points. The lowest round of the week came courtesy of Dandré Neumeyer who carded a brilliant 64 on Thursday.

One of the most coveted prizes of the week is the Spirit of the Jock trophy, for the individual to whom winning is not the ultimate prize, but rather the meeting of new friends and simply partaking. The trophy was awarded to Danie Stassen.
A raffle was also sponsored by Jock Safari Lodge for a two night-stay for two people, fully inclusive of game drives, meals and drinks, valued at R55 000. This was won by Pagiwa.

“We’re incredibly proud to have put on another successful Jock this year,” said Mbombela Golf Club CEO, Darren Plumb. “The spirit of the Jock outshone any form of competition throughout the week, and it was a great pleasure welcoming hundreds of golfers from all over the country to our course. We cannot wait for the 57th edition of the tournament next year, and we hope to see everyone back again in 2025.”