ST ANNES, ENGLAND | South Africa’s Aldrich Potgieter is not the first golfer to be galvanised by the Home of Golf, but few will have had their short-term future so profoundly transformed by what initially appeared to have been a somewhat unhopeful first visit to the auld grey toun of St Andrews.
Two weeks ago, the 17-year-old South African, brought up in Western Australia but now returned to his homeland, watched Connor McKinney and Adam Brady, old friends of his from Joondalup Golf Club in Perth, finish first and second, respectively, in the St Andrews Links Trophy after he himself had missed the cut.
He was delighted for the pair, but also wanted a little trophy action for himself.
It also didn’t escape his attention that the fairways and greens of The Old Course were being readied for something of a golfing party next month.
His response? Victory in last week’s British Amateur Championship that both trumped his old playing partners and came with a bonus prize: a place in next month’s 150th Open.
“Playing in front of the grandstands at St Andrews was one thing,” he said after the biggest win of his career. “But now I can go back and play in front of packed ones. Pretty unreal to think about and so exciting.”
Potgieter produced a masterly linksland performance that made a mockery of his failure to make the cut not only at the Links Trophy but also in the Scottish Amateur Championship that preceded it.
It’s also extraordinary. When The Old Course hosted its last Open in 2015, Potgieter was a mere 10 years old. Does he remember any of it? “Remember it?” he repeated with a laugh. “I don’t even think I had played golf back then.”
Just the third South African to win the title, after Bobby Cole in 1966 and Jovan Rebula four years ago, and the youngest winner since 16-year-old Italian Matteo Manassero triumphed in 2009, the champion also earns an invitation to play next year’s Masters and U.S. Open.
Even during a week of practice ahead of the Lytham test, Potgieter was struggling to adapt to the bouncy turf and capricious winds of the British seaside, but the Golf South Africa team management were alive to the possibility that it was only a matter of time, whispering that he might be the youngest member of the crew travelling around the coastline of England and Scotland this summer, but he possesses a wise golfing head on his youthful shoulders.
The champion himself said: “Playing links golf for the first time, I knew I had plenty to learn. The whole Golf RSA team have been amazing. In particular, Roger Wessels (the former Sunshine Tour professional) has explained how to use the ground, things like using a 5-iron around the green instead of a 56-degree wedge.”
Potgieter also proved himself up to the task of negotiating Royal Lytham’s famous (or infamous, depending on the state of your card) collection of 174 bunkers, earning rapturous applause from galleries not used to seeing any golfer regularly emerge from the deep greenside sand traps with smiles on their faces let alone tap-ins left for par.
The final piece in the jigsaw was his precocious ability to thrive when the pressure was on. They say that if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen, and he proved that he could take it by nature as well as name (the Afrikaans pronunciation is “pot heater”).
Having qualified for the latter stages with an ease at odds to those previous failures to clear the first hurdle on this trip, Potgieter thrived in head-to-head competition, his pre-final highlights a 6-and-4 dispatch of last year’s runner-up, Monty Scowsill; victory over his compatriot Kyle De Beer at the first extra hole in the last 16; and a semifinal win against Ireland’s Alex Maguire, leaving the galleries wondering which golfer had been brought up on the linksland.
Before that final-four clash, the weather had been clement but, faced with a gusting and blustery wind, Potgieter hit 2-iron stingers from the tee, sawn-off approaches into the greens, and scrambled with straight irons. Quite clearly, lessons had been learned.
In the morning round of the 36-hole final against Sam Bairstow, Potgieter ticked four birdies alongside 14 pars, enough to assume a 7-up lead.
The Englishman had been under the cosh but had lost neither his sense of humour nor stomach for the fight, as revealed either side of lunch. First, after discovering that his drive at the 18th had plugged in a fairway bunker, Bairstow turned to on-course TV reporter George Harper and wondered with a wry smile if he had stood on it.
Bairstow then re-emerged from the clubhouse set for a fight. Five birdies in the first 13 holes of the afternoon lap, followed by late mistakes from Potgieter, reduced the lead to two holes. The English fans (including John Gough, whom Bairstow had defeated in his semifinal) were loudly encouraging, and the South African team were for the first time a little anxious.
Potgieter’s caddie, Christiaan Maas, who kicked off the team’s linksland jaunt with victory in last month’s Brabazon Trophy and provided expert advice on the greens, conceded that the nerves were kicking in, but his man was not to be denied and closed out a 3-and-2 win.
“I can’t really find the words,” the champion said. “There’s no feeling like it, and I haven’t felt this good before. On this golf course, to go bogey-free for the first 18 holes was incredible for me. I knew Sam was going to come out strong in the afternoon. He wasn’t going to give up. I just had to play steady and keep my lead.”
South African sport has experienced something of a brain drain in recent years, with cricketers and rugby players, in particular, moving away from the country. Potgieter has headed in the opposite direction, and the decision is already reaping rewards.
Top: Aldrich Potgieter, 17, of South Africa becomes the second youngest player to win the Amateur Championship.
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