Whoa Files: How About That Trophy, Nelson Mandela Edition

Mark Garrod reports on the Euro Tour's Nelson Mandela Championship where they played Royal Durban as a 5,594-yard par-65 due to flooding, prompting Jason Sobel to suggest this was the first (albeit unintentional!) professional example of Tee It Forward.

But what caught my eye: the Getty Image accompanying the story.

I thought winner Scott Jamieson was doing a complicated ventriloquist act featuring former President Mandela talking to graduates of the The First Tee and then, well, I realized some South Africans just went an ambitious direction with their trophy design.

Comments

[walkie talkie banks]

Ive met Scott and he's a really good guy.He doesn't deserve his first ever tour trophy to look like that surely?!!
Looks like something 3 yr olds are going to get for Christmas

[No Longer Used to be Former Stack & Tilt Convert]

I bet he thinks that trophy looks pretty good, in his hand.

[Hoosier]

He also received a paintaing of Mandela signed by the great man himself which is one of the coolest thing you could ever win on a golf course.

What an honor for Scott to win this inaugural event. Shame they could only play 36 holes but the way things looked on Friday morning its amazing they were able to have a tournament at all.

[Rob]

Scott Jamieson shot a 57 in the final round - so he deserves a trophy of some kind just for that!

(I know I know it was a par 65 - however, I am sure the commentators will constantly make reference to it until someone actually shoots 59 on a par 70 or higher).

BTW - when I heard that they were playing this tournament at Royal Durban, I thought for sure that they had made a mistake and were actually playing it at Durban Country Club. Royal Durban is not much of a course. Durban CC is very much a course, and then some.

[KRoper]

Didn't they have to close holes last year? Maybe they need to change the time of year they have tournaments there.

[Hoosier]

Durban got pretty much a year's worth of rain over the last two months. And then early on Friday they received a deluge of over an inch in 20 minutes. So freaky weather did them in.

One interesting note is that Royal Durban is enclosed within a race track- apparently the most famous track in South Africa.

I also think this was the first European Tour tournament, and possibly professional tournament, held at the course.

[Hoosier]

It was funny listening to Dougie Donnelly's commentary on Sunday complaining about how the tournament refused to move the playoff hole to allow it to start earlier. The thought of returning to Royal Durban for a Monday finish was obviously not very appealing!

[digsouth]

This was an amazing win. While the ''57'' looks cool- the real story is he shot 8 under par, going from a +1 to a -7 to get in a 3 way tie, and then won the playoff in 2 holes. I kept watching to try and figure the course out....it is in the middle of a racetrack (horse).

They never mentioned that Mandela was hospitalized while this event was under way. I couldn't figure that out.

The trophy is terrible, but so are many others, including the Masters mini- building. I like REAL trophies, of silver or gold- not crystal or those other dishware things from the WGC events, and not swords or other such BS. And not so GD big they are a joke, like that hockey toilet.

Anyway, the painting, signed by the artist and by Mandela is truly a wonderful bonus to the paper mache' wierd ''trophy'', surely thought up by a committee , and not by anyone who has a clue.

[Ghillie]

Jaco Van Zyl also shot a 57 and he came 8th. There were two 59s in the final round. I noticed no scores outside the 60s in the final round and wondered what the devil was going on with this event.

Weather anomaly notwithstanding, and the unfortunate need to compress to two days -- it happens once in a while -- it does not seem to me that even at its best this is a course the European Tour should be playing an official event on. Whole fields shooting in the low 50s strikes me as similar in feel if not quite in kind to playing with an anchored putter.

[chico]

Ghillie-it is very much inferior to Durban Country club but in its defence it was shortened to a par 65 5600 yard course because of the weather.Obviously better than no event at all but not what they would be hoping for.

[freshfrankie]

I'm not an expert in South African art, but I've seen pieces from that area that make me believe that there is an exciting art tradition to warrant this kind of trophy design. I'd rather win this trophy displaying one of my heroes than another oversized crystal paper weight engraved with logos of financial service brands.

[jjshaka]

That was easily the strangest tournament I've ever seen...reminded me of a local muni event being televised. Quirky stuff.
Sad that Mr. Mandela is now too old to attend.

[Greg]

@freshfrankie: the tradition of a joke played on a patron?

[Hawkeye]

Even at full length, I doubt the course would be worthy of a Tour event - it looked like a sad muni.