Radical Golfer breaks radical Guinness record

Date: 16 November 2018 By: Jo Robinson

Heinrich du Preez is also known as The Radical Golfer, which is not an unusual moniker for a man of so many talents and the holder of so many world records - Guinness and otherwise. Recently, Heinrich and his friend Gunter Engels passed Louis Trichardt in the dark of the night as part of their recent Guinness World Record-breaking attempt.

Heinrich is a philanthropist who dedicates much of his time and prodigious talent to helping those who are less fortunate. In this instance, his aim was to collect as many teddy bears as possible for the Golfing for Teddy project. These bears are then given to children spending their Christmas in hospital.

Heinrich set out to beat the current Guinness World Record set by M Venkata K Reddy, M Vanaja, and M V Krishna Reddy in India when they completed the longest journey in a golf cart between 14 and 22 January 2017. The distance that they covered and which Heinrich had to beat was 1665.138km. With 18 Guinness Book records already under his belt, he rose to the challenge.

In order to beat the current record soundly, the aim was to achieve more than 2000km over a period of eight days, using a standard golf cart that was sponsored by Golf Car SA. To make the challenge even more interesting, the two travellers decided that, before setting off every day in the cart, they would play a round of golf at every club where they stayed over.

Heinrich and Gunter begun their trip on Sunday, 4 November, at the Serengeti Estates Golf Club in Kempton Park. The clubs for each day, from that day to the end of their challenge on 11 November, when they ended back at the Serengeti Club, were Mbombela Golf Club in Mpumalanga, Hans Merensky Country Club Gold Course in Phalaborwa, Messina Golf Club in Musina, Mogol Club in Lephalale, Lost City Golf Course at Sun City and Goldfields West Golf Club in Carletonville.

They beat their aim of 2000km by finishing at 2007km in seven days.

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Jo Robinson

Jo joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in 2018 pursuing a career in journalism after many years of writing fiction and non-fiction for other sectors.

More photos... 

The standard purple golf cart sponsored by Golf Cart SA did the journey of 2007 kilometres in seven days with no problems at an average speed of 25 kmp. Photo Facebook Longest Cart Journey.