About 10 SA golfers have made the weekend cut to vie for top honours on the final day of the Joburg Ladies Open International Golf Tournament.
Nicole Garcia, Lee-Anne Pace, Nadia van der Westhuizen, Kaleigh Telfer, Kiera Floyd, Tandi McCallum, Casandra Alexander, Lora Assad, Stacy Bregman, and Lejan Lewthwaite finished ahead of the curve and will now compete for a lion’s share of the coveted €300,000 prize purse.
These South African women are among 64 international golfers who made the weekend cut. The female golf tournament, which had a scintillating start on Wednesday, 01 March fielded about 132 golfers at the Modderfontein Golf Club, east of Johannesburg.
Garcia was the highest-placed South African at Modderfontein on Thursday, finishing in a sixth tie.
“The Joburg Ladies Open has always been really popular,” she said after her round, “and we local golfers are so incredibly grateful to Bongi Mokaba and the City of Johannesburg for getting LET status for the tournament”.
Garcia said having two chances to gain winner’s status on the LET is a huge incentive for female golfers.
“Even if you don’t win, just having an international competition on our shores is massive, especially for the young pros who can’t afford to compete abroad,” she added.
The 32-year-old Garcia shared sixth place on four-under with Felicity Johnson from England, Swede Moa Folke, Kirsten Rudgeley from Australia, and Italy’s Alessandra Fanali.
Bongi Mokaba, the City’s Director of Event Management has been the driving force behind the tournament and was instrumental in having the Joburg Ladies Open elevated to co-sanctioned status.
“The Joburg Ladies Open has been hugely successful since its introduction on the Sunshine Ladies Tour in 2016, and we are confident that the event will continue to enjoy the success it achieved as a co-sanctioned event in 2022,” she said.
Mokaba, who is also the tournament promoter, noted that the Joburg Ladies Open is unique in that it truly aims to grow the game of golf and draw more women into the sport.
“We are the only tournament during which only women play in our Pro-Am preceding the event,” said Mokaba.
“We also use only women as volunteers, and you will not only see Modderfontein female members on the course doing scoring and other volunteer work, but we draw women from many golf clubs who love to be part of the event.
This year’s tournament was hosted with a purpose, themed “Dignity for a Girl Child”.
“We teamed up with retailer Spar on our ‘Birdies for Dignity’ campaign, which will donate a dignity pack for every birdie hit during the tournament. We also ran a ‘Splash for Dignity’ initiative during the Pro-Am and managed to raise over R10,000, which will be used to buy additional sanitary packs. All the packs will be donated to Zenzeleni Primary School in Alexandra when the tournament wraps up on Saturday,” Mokaba explained.
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