WATC 2006

The World Amateur Team Championships has been hosted by De Zalze during October 2006. Both De Zalze Golf and Spier Resort were proud to be the hosts for the 2006 World Amateur Team Championships where the men played for the Eisenhower Trophy and the ladies for the Espirito Santo Trophy.

The World Amateur Team Championships gathered the world’s best young non-professional players. From here on they usually turn professional.

The tournament started on a high note with the ladies of South Africa, Kelli Shean, Ashleigh Simon and Stacey Bregman, who competed in a nail biting finish against Sweden where South Africa walked away with the Espirito Santo Trophy on home soil! During the four days, they soared to the lead, dropped first place to the chasing teams, but they pulled off the greatest triumph and closest nail biting finish ever in golf in South Africa. With the pressure on, the SA girls fought to cling on to their part of the lead and had to wait nervously to get the result of the count-out. Receiving the trophy was truly SA Women’s Golf’s proudest moment.

This year a record breaking 69 men’s teams competed for the most sought after trophy in amateur golf. The South African team consisting of Dawie van der Walt, Charl Coetzee and Christiaan Basson, put their best foot forward but in the end they had to be satisfied with 22nd tied.

The Eisenhower Trophy belonged to the Netherlands in the end withCanada in 2nd and the USA in 3rd place. Joost Luiten (Netherlands) finished with a 5-under-par 67 as his contribution to their Eisenhower triumph.

The tournament represented the pinnacle of amateur golf throughoutthe word and we in South Africa, in particular Cape Town and Stellenbosch were proud to welcome all the golfers, team delegates and visitors to the Winelands region of the Cape.

This was a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase great golf and a beautiful country and we also made sure that it was a tournament to remember.

For further details look at: http://www.worldamateur2006.co.za

HARVARD AEROPLANE ACCIDENT AT DE ZALZE

A fire in the motor of a quite antique and historic Harvard aeroplane almost cost the lives of two people playing golf at De Zalze on Wednesday 26 October 2005.
The couple, Mary-Anne Brewster and Alfred Leroy is engaged and they were enjoying a romantic weekend at the Kleine Zalze Lodges. They were playing golf on the 17th when Brewster said that she saw the plane circle in the air and then saw it coming down to land on the golf course. She took pictures of the plane without realising that it tried to do an emergency landing on the golf course. When she realised what is going to happen, she panicked and Leroy had to push the accelerator of their golf cart to try and get out of the way. The wing of the aeroplane still hit the cart and took off the whole canopy, it lost a bit of control and eventually came to a stop against the trees.
Leroy was hit against the head and she had some minor injuries, but in the end everybody were safe, including the pilot.

GOLF DIGEST – TOP 100 COURSES IN SA

After the clubhouse has been completed in December 2004 and we could offer guests the best of quality and fine golfing, De Zalze moved into spot number 31 which was a huge climb in the Top 100. This year De Zalze has done so again by moving up 4 places to number 27 in South Africa. In the Western Cape we have taken the 4th place, right behind Arrabella, Pearl Valley and Erinvale. With the World Amateur taking place at De Zalze this year, we hope to make good impressions all over the world and move up even higher in the next issue of the Top 100 Courses in SA.