The PGA of South Africa’s annual teams competition, the Webster Cup, was played this week at the new Peter Matkovich-designed Ebotse, east of Johannesburg.

The three-round event, which has teams of eight club professionals from three regions, is contested with rounds of foursomes, betterball and singles matches. After the first round of foursomes, the Cape side (made up of Western, Southern and Eastern Cape) were just one point ahead of arch-rivals, Gauteng. But it was the following day in the betterball when the Cape side really dominated, leaving the other two sides in their wake. Such was their dominance that they were able to lose the singles to Gauteng, yet still win the Webster Cup by more than five points.

This makes it three in a row for the Cape side, mostly made up of pros with successful Tour experience like Teddy Webber, Wayne Bradley, Mike Michell and Algy Kietzman. Young Cape teaching pro Lawrence Collen was player of the tournament, not losing any of his matches in which he was involved.

Chief executive of the PGA Dennis Bruyns commented afterwards: “This event continues to grow in stature and, in the newly opened Ebotse, we had a great venue this year. The tough links like layout was universally praised by all the participants and we are very grateful to them for providing their course to us.”

He went on to explain why the event is so popular among the pros, “The team format is excellent with a couple of seniors in each team. A couple of them turned pro as far back as 1962, which means they were pros for 25 years before some of the others were even born! You can’t beat that for experience!”

Cape team manager Adrienne Thorne was delighted with her team’s performance: “I am really proud of the guys, they played superbly. And I must thank our hosts, Carnival City, for their wonderful hospitality. The functions they put on each evening were really great fun. We are definitely looking forward to defending next year.”

Results

SCORES AFTER ROUND 1 - FOURSOMES: Cape 5, 5 Gauteng 4, 5 and Natal 2
SCORES AFTER ROUND 2 – BETTERBALL : Cape 6, 5 Natal 3, 5 and Gauteng 2
SCORES AFTER ROUND 3 – SINGLES: Gauteng 10 Cape 9 and Natal 5
FINAL SCORES :- Cape 21 points, Gauteng 16, 5 Natal 10, 5 points

TEAM CAPE (Western, Southern & Eastern Cape) Manager – Adrienne Thorne William Guy Lawrence Collen Wayne Bradley Mike Michell Ben Janse van Rensburg Gavin Woodroffe Teddy Weber Algy Kietzmann
TEAM GAUTENG (All provinces north of the Vaal) Manager – Roy Yates Paul Marks Kenneth Dube Dave Riddle Morne Botha Norman Mashaba Johan van Vuuren Mike de Villiers Richard Lyon
TEAM NATAL (KZN, Northen Cape & Freestate) Manager – Phil Simmons Derek James Ian Palmer Colin Sorour Garth Pearson Jacques Beukes Barry Bothma Gert van Biljon Alf Hopf