|
The year's most
cut-throat golf competition at Hansa Powerade Drak Challenge
Underberg – Arguably the
year’s most fiercely competitive golf competition has triggered an
inter-provincial war-of-words, weeks before it is due to get under way in
the Southern Drakensberg town of Underberg.
The Hansa Powerade Drakensberg Challenge inter-canoe-club golf competition
on the rustic Underberg Country Club nine-hole course has become a
distinctive part of the canoeing weekend, and in recent years has seen the
emergence of a ruthless inter-provincial rivalry.
The massive trophy award to the winners is affectionately known as “The
Beast”, a Spanish marble, gold and black monster trophy originally won by
Mark Perrow in the eighties. After being unable to house the oversized and
pretentious trophy, he donated it to the Drak golf-day, where he felt it
would suit the snowballing intensity of the provincially-driven rivalry
between the clubs.
For five years on the trot the competition was monopolized by Gauteng
paddler Colin Simpkins, whose painstaking efforts to assemble a four-ball
loaded with high handicap star golfers, bore fruits in successive years.
However, his reign came to an abrupt end in a thunderstorm plagued and drama
laced showdown with Oscar Chalupsky’s fourball, which included his son Luke.
“About time the trophy came back home to KZN,” smirked Chalupsky after
snatching the title by a narrow margin.
“This year we will be even more gracious in victory than Simpkins had to be
in defeat,” said Chalupsky. “We are just starting. "Simpkins won it five
times in a row, so we are starting our five year stretch.”
“One swallow does not a summer make,” was Simpkins’ reply. “We played
rubbish and they only just beat us. This year that trophy is coming back
home across the Vaal river, where it belongs.”
The
nine-hole competition is open to any participants in the Hansa Powerade
Drakensberg Challenge, and starts at 2pm on Saturday 24 February at the
Underberg Country Club.
The Hansa Powerade Drakensberg Challenge will host the SA K1 River
Championships in Underberg on 24 and 25 February. Entries close on 17
February. The race website is at
www.canoesa.org.za/DrakChallenge
ENDS
|
