Rampie scoops up coveted Hanglip 54 trophy

Date: 14 July 2023 By: Andries van Zyl

The Soutpansberg Golf Club was abuzz with excitement the past week with the hosting of the 30^th annual Hanglip 54 golf tournament. This popular event yet again attracted a full field of 128 players from across the country to fight it out for the top spots over three days from 6 to 8 July.

The event is mainly focussed on attracting “visitors”. Regarding this, the tournament saw some familiar faces from clubs across South-Africa once more, as well is the well-known Klerksdorp group.

As stated, the tournament is decided over a three-day period. Each day, teams of two tee off to compete in a better-ball Stableford format, meaning one winning team emerges for each day. The overall winner of the Hanglip 54, however, is decided according to each player’s individual Stableford score over the three days, meaning that you can only win if you played all three days.

Although the focus is on visitors, that does not mean that local golfers do not compete fiercely for top honours. Sadly, though, some time has passed since a local golfer walked away with the coveted Hanglip 54 trophy.

This year, however, one can say that a local golfer actually won. Until recently, Rampie Gilfillan was a member of the Soutpansberg Golf Club. A couple of months ago, however, he moved down to the Cape and joined the Kingswood Golf Estate. On Saturday, 8 July, he emerged as overall winner of the Hanglip 54 with a combined score of  108 individual Stableford points. In close second and third place were local golfers Roelof Burger (second) and Wikus Botes (third), both with 107 points on a count out.

As for the team winners, the first day’s play was won by Wikus Botes and Francois Jonker with 47 better-ball Stableford points. In second place, also with 47 points on a count out, were Michael Parkin and Micheal Peterson, with Bennie Smith and Peter Thompson third with 44 points.

Day two of the Hanglip 54 was won by Ruaan van der Merwe (Germiston Golf Club) and Johan Coetzer (Kroonstad Country Club) with 46 points (Coetzer was 2022’s overall winner of the Hanglip 54).  In second place were visitors Rampie Gilfillan and Norman Pretorius (St Francis Bay) with 45 points, followed by Soutpansberg players Flippie Greyling and Dion Svoboda in third place, also with 45 points on a count out.

The third and final day of play was again won by Ruaan van Tonder and Johan Coetzer with a score of 47 points. In second place were Soutpansberg’s Rhulani Mavunda and H Modukwe, also with 47 points (count out), with club mates James Shirinda and LG Dlamini in third place, also with 47 points (count out).

The president of the Soutpansberg Golf Club, Inus Steyn, thanked all this year’s sponsors, which included Limpopo Tourism, Northgate and Louis Trichardt Lodge, The Pro Shop, Buffelsfontein Brandewyn, Newco Meat, Soutpansberg Cold Storage, Trellidor, Oasis Water, NTT Isuzu, SAB, Makhado Roof Trusses, Action Ford Louis Trichardt, DRS and the Limpopo Gambling Board. He also thanked his management team and club staff for all their hard work in hosting the event.

Steyn also paid special tribute to Arie Steyn, Freddie Birch and Louis Holtzhausen, who hosted the first Hanglip 54 in 1994. Arie, Kobus Barkhuizen (senior) and Lappies Labuschagne were also honoured for being part of the Hanglip 54 every single year from the first one. The fourth player would have been Tjol Jandrell, but he had to withdraw from the tournament for medical reasons. Inus Steyn also paid tribute to Rob Milton as honorary member of the Soutpansberg Golf Club, for his commitment, respect, vision, ambition, willingness to work hard, guts to pull the trigger and being able to sell a dream and get people involved regarding the club.

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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