What Opinion | Quick history lesson for South African golfers

On 2 1990, when FW de Klerk announced the unbanning of the ANC and other organizations, as well as the release of political prisoners, Louis Oosthuizen was only seven years old. Branden Grace, Oliver Becker, Justin Harding and Shaun Norris were even younger, JC Ritchie were not born yet. So the eight golf professionals can be excused for not having much of an understanding of South African history, but I am happy to give them a quick lesson. In 1981, when Tom Watson won arguably the most prestigious golf tournament, the Masters, he collected a check for $60 000 (R936 000 at today’s exchange rate). At the time, it was the biggest payout for a tournament win.    A few months later, five of the world’s leading golfers – Sever Johnny Miller, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Lee Trevino – competed in a golf competition at Sun City, with Miller taking the first prize of $500 000. In the same year, ANC activist and lawyer Griffiths Merge was stabbed 45 times by members of an apartheid death squad in Umlaut in Durban; Joe Gephi, the ANC representative in Zimbabwe, was assassinated in Harare; while ANC members David  and Johannes were sentenced to death. In South Africa, thousands were detained, tortured and imprisoned while protesting against apartheid. And, if I may get personal, I was being arrested almost weekly for playing football in the township without a permit. (This, of course, pales in comparison with the brutality of apartheid that black South Africans felt every day). I am sure the eight South African professional golfers mentioned above would ask themselves a lot. There is a direct line that can be drawn between the deaths of Merge, Ghazi and many others and the $500 000 Miller received for winning at Sun City. The atrocities that the apartheid regime committed in South Africa and neighboring countries were well publicized worldwide. To such an extent, in fact, that a wide-ranging boycott – including sporting contact with South Africa – was organization. Within South Africa, this boycott was spearheaded by the SA Council on Sport. To counter this boycott, South Africa tried desperately to create the (false) impression that everything was normal, hence slogan One way to try to fool the world into believing that everything was normal was by organizing sporting competitions. The Springboks travelled to New Zealand, where they faced a barrage of demonstrations and a hostile reception. Ned bank, with golfing officials, organizing the Ned bank A Million Dollar Challenge. So, in fact, the money that Miller made was directly related to apartheid atrocities, for had there not been apartheid, there would have been no need to pay so much money to the winner of a golf tournament. But to convince athletes to break the sports boycott, travel to South Africa and play in a competition, huge fees had to be paid. And again, the eight South African professionals mentioned at the beginning of this article would ask themselves: What has this got to do with us?  When, as numerous sources including the CIA and Amnesty International claim, Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, he was allegedly dismembered in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia, a bit like apartheid South Africa, became the pariah of the world.