​Not only is the City hosting the Joburg Ladies Open tournament for sporting reasons, but it is also creating fantastic business opportunities for local entrepreneurs and young women in golf.

This marks the seventh year that the City has hosted the tournament, but the historic first time that the event is co-sanctioned by the Sunshine Ladies Tour (SLT) and the Ladies European Tour (LET). The 54-hole tournament is being played at the Modderfontein Golf Club northeast of Johannesburg.

Bongi Mokaba, the City’s Director of Events Management is delighted by the success of the tournament and the City’s contribution.

Mokaba says this year’s tournament boasts more prize money and bigger incentives for female golfers.

“The prize money has grown from R500 000 to €250 000, which is more than R4-million rands, and the co-sanctioned status brings huge opportunities and a lot of income potential for South African golfers that lack the resources to compete abroad,” Mokaba says.

The overall tournament champion will be granted winner status for the remainder of the 2022 and 2023 season, which is a massive career boost and great exposure on the world stage.

“This is a fantastic reward for a South African or international player, especially those who are making their debut on the Ladies European Tour and beginning their rookie season in South Africa,” she adds.

Two players – India’s Diksha Dagar and England’s Alice Hewson – took full advantage of the opportunity to win in their first start in the co-sanctioned SA Women’s Open in 2019 and 2020.

Mokaba says over the last few years, there has been an internal discussion on how the City can contribute to growing women’s golf.

“To have been able to get to the point of introducing the ladies’ tournament in 2016 was the beginning of bigger things to come. We needed not to only focus on men, but also look at women,” she says.

The Joburg Ladies Open has become a platform for young ladies who have just joined the professional ranks to build experience by competing against the best from South Africa and Europe. The tournament gives them a chance to learn from their peers in terms of course management, process, how to plan a hole and around it, and what shots they play that makes them so wealthy.

Mokaba says seeing young women win the tournament in the last three years, especially local rising talent, was an indication that the platform that has been created by the City is effective.

“Not only have we created employment opportunities for them, but also provided a platform for them to showcase their capabilities and skills by playing in Europe,” she adds.

Mokaba notes that the City supports local businesses through the tournament. “We’ve made it a point that local people benefit from what the City procures for the tournament,” she says.

“For example, the handbags the Pro-Am guests received were made by a small, medium, and micro-enterprise (SMME) in Diepsloot that creates bags and accessories from recycled material. A company in Benoni made the T-shirts, while the event also created opportunities for caddies, sourced from the local course. We need the corporate world to step up and support women’s golf so we can grow the tour with more events to offer the players additional earning potential and create more jobs locally.”

The stakes will be high on Saturday, 26 March, the last day of the tournament when the finalists battle it out for the winning title.

Written by Brümilda Swartbooi

25.3.2022