Richard and Warrick in major tee off

JACK MILNER

Richard and Warrick, both former Maccabi national players and successful players on South Africa’s Sunshine Tour, have teamed up to present arguably the most complete fulltime golf school on the African continent.

Both are head professionals at two of the country’s leading golf courses – Richard at Houghton GC and Warrick at Killarney GC.

Raw Golf Schools is the culmination of a life-long dream of both Richard and Warrick. Ironically both won the Royal Swazi Open, Richard in 1996 and Warrick the following year. Warrick had to wait seven years for his next title but he clinched the Telkom PGA Championship at Woodhill GC in 2004.

Richard was one of South Africa’s leading amateurs and won a number of titles, including the 1986 English Open Amateur Strokeplay Championship – the Brabazon Trophy. He also won the Royal Thai Classic on the Asian PGA Tour in 1996 and represented South Africa in the 1999 World Cup of Golf in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

After their playing careers had come to an end, Richard became technical director of instruction at the Gary Player Golf Experience at the World of Golf in Woodmead, while Warrick was head professional at Jamie Gough Golf Schools in Tygervalley, Cape Town.

Together they boast 55 years of professional experience in the golf industry as players, coaches and on-course professionals. They have worked extensively with both men’s and women’s elite amateurs and professional golfers, as well as countless club golfers.

They have sought to create the best fulltime golf school in Africa by partnering with a team of highly accomplished professionals to join them. The aim is to produce self-motivated, professional students who will be trained and equipped to perform in the highly pressurised arena of elite amateur or professional golf.

The school will be hosted at Houghton and Killarney.

The team will be joined by the highly qualified golf fitness fundi Garth Milne. Garth works as a golf fitness specialist and has been helping professional and amateur golfers for the past 14 years.

He developed the Kinetic Golf Fitness System that is applied at numerous golf academies across South Africa. He currently works with numerous professional golfers playing on the PGA and European Tours, the LPGA and Ladies European Tour, as well as on the Sunshine Tour.

Garth will also use 3D analysis in the quest for swing improvement.

Virgin Active Old Eds have also partnered with Raw Golf Schools to host the personal training classes by Garth.

Counselling psychologist Maretha Claasen joins Raw Golf Schools for the critically important mental aspect of the game. She has specialised in sport psychology since January 1994 and for the past 20 years has worked with many golfers – professionals to juniors – from all over South Africa.

Many of her golf clients are elite level golfers, playing on the Sunshine Tour, European Tour, US PGA Tour and Asian Tour, and many are trophy winners with national and/or provincial colours.

Former European Tour and Challenge Tour player Neil Cheetham is the club head path analysis and club fitting specialist. He brings with him the latest technology available, namely Trackman.

On the medical side Dr Jon Patricios joins the team. Jon is currently president of the South African Sports Medicine Association (SASMA).

He has been team physician to school, club, provincial and international sports teams in rugby, cricket, soccer, athletics and basketball, is a member of Cricket SA’s and SA Rugby’s medical committees, and the Rockies Comrades Marathon panel of experts.

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Boyd to represent SA seniors in Turkey

Jacqui Boyd is one of those tennis players who has really matured well and appears to be thoroughly enjoying her tennis as a senior player. For the second successive year she has been selected to represent South Africa in the Women’s 35+ age group at the Young Seniors World Team Tennis Championships in Antalya, Turkey, next month.

The Seniors World Championships is held each year in a different country with age divisions ranging from 35+ to 80+. This year’s tournament is once again expected to field an extremely strong list of players from countries all over the world, including tennis power houses of Spain, France, US, Argentina and Germany, to name but a few.

Jacqui, a former SA No 1 junior and current No 1 in the 35+ division, competed in her first Senior World Championships last year where the team did exceptionally well to finish sixth of the 16 countries in a very strong field which included numerous former top 120 players in the world.

Jacqui has represented South Africa at three Maccabi Games where she has won medals on each occasion and still says competing in Israel every four years is one of the highlights of her career.

Jacqui plays premier league tennis for Camps Bay Tennis Club and over the years has helped the club to win ladies and mixed league titles