It is official. The North West province has the best Country District golf team in the country.

This was confirmed at the 2016 South African Country Districts tournament at the beautiful Nelspruit Country Club golf course from 16-20 May.  North West claimed the A-Section title while staying undefeated for the entire tournament.

When North West manager, Leon Bevan, clinched the Manager’s Championship ahead of the tournament, the North West team took this as a good omen.

The 2013 champions pummelled Ekurhuleni 11 – 1 in their opening match and handed both Boland and Free State an 8 – 4 drubbing to top the standings. Heading into the final round, all the team needed, was one final show of strength against Mpumalanga to seal the deal. This time, however, victory took a back seat to the spirit of the game of golf.

The two teams tied at 2-all in the Foursomes but Marco Schoenfeld gave North West an early edge when he defeated Ivan Mare 6 and 5. Naithen Moore widened the gap to two points when he downed Peetie van der Merwe 4 and 3, but Ru-Jean Lessingh hit back for Mpumalanga with a 2 and 1 win against Tiaan Maree.

Johan Krugel downed Chris Zietsman 2 and 1 to extend North West’s lead again, but Daniel Clifford kept the difference at one point when he beat David-Louis Nortjé 1-up.

Then, North West’s Zabastian de Jager halved against Gary Daniel and    teammate Slade Pickering also        squared his game against Eddie Wilken to keep North West in control. It was down to the final game between NW’s Albert Britz and Christiaan de Beer.

“At this stage, we had a 6 – 5 lead, but we had already won the title on   game points,” explained Bevan. “Albert had a putt to win his game but we decided to concede the putt. Christiaan  made his putt to win the game and we drew 6-all with Mpumalanga.

“This championship has a spirit of fierce competition but it is also a great demonstration of sportsmanship and friendship. We conceded the game to honour the spirit in which the championship is played.”

“Nathan was a huge banker for us this week and Slade was equally impressive but, if you look at the MVP list, you can see how the whole team pulled together for each other,” Bevan said.

Bevan’s team consisted of:

Johan Krugel (captain) (Rustenburg)

Slade Pickering (Pecanwood)

David Nortjé (Magalies Park)

Tiaan Maree (Lichtenburg)

Albert Brits, Renaldo Schoenveld (both Potchefstroom)

Nathan Moore and Zabastian de Jager (both Klerksdorp).