News

The Nedbank Golf Challenge hosted by Gary Player will this year showcase the pride of the local communities around Sun City through its partnerships with local artists and entrepreneurs, and as part of the tournament’s ongoing drive to invest back in the North West Province.

As a major Rolex Series tournament on the European Tour, the Nedbank Golf Challenge is perfectly placed to impact on its surrounding community and help to create a sustainable future for the villages around Sun City.

Over the past few years the Nedbank Golf Challenge has already transformed its procurement criteria to include a 40% local eligible spend on procurement for “Africa’s Major”.

The event has taken this a step further and identified local partners and suppliers with companies wholly registered in the North West Province and not branch offices of companies based elsewhere. These companies must also be 51% Black-owned and have at least a BEE Level 2 status, and preference is given to Black female-owned companies.

The success of this strategy has already revealed greater engagement with and the development and growth of companies around Sun City. Products and services that have been awarded locally (either wholly or partially), to name only a few, are civils (plumbing, electrical and paving services), scaffolding, fuel, printing and stationery, water cooler supply, chauffeur services (for the transfer of all VIPs and the players), bus services, draping and security.

This year the community involvement has been taken a step further with the introduction of “yarn bombing” and “bird art” as exciting new creative elements for the tournament.

“Yarn Bombing” is the action of covering objects or structures in public places with decorative knitted or crocheted material as a form of street art. It’s an exciting new concept for a major golf tournament, bringing the visual power of “crochet graffiti” to golf but in a way that is far more sensitive to the environment.

A team of passionate ladies and one gentleman from the village of Mahobieskraal in the Moses Kotane Local Municipality have knitted 144 000 running metres of wool to create visually stunning “yarn bombs” that are covering some of the standout trees and decorative landscaped features in and around the Gary Player Country Club golf course.

The creative element around this year’s tournament will also include works by the local artist Isaac Jaycee Motau who specialises in recycling old tyres and repurposes them into flowerpots, hanging baskets for plants, bird or animal feeders, and swings for kids’ playgrounds.

For this year’s Nedbank Golf Challenge he has been contracted to create 12 iconic birds as décor for the tournament, while his flowerpot and hanging basket creations will be used to bring colour to the overall look and feel of the event.

This year the community drive behind “Africa’s Major” will be showcased to millions of viewers around the world like never before.

For further information about artist Isaac Jaycee Motau, please contact him on dipitsanengafricanfood@gmail.com.

For further information about the “yarn bombing”, please contact Thuto Legwale, the Managing Director: Segaetsho Dynasty, on thuto@segaetshodynasty.co.za