Lindani Ndwandwe’s chasing the dream

Lindani Ndwandwe’s golf journey has been unlike that of many others. But he still yearns to compete, writes MICHAEL VLISMAS.

We speak so easily about a passion for golf, but most of us don’t really understand what that means.

We think it’s because we stay up late into the early hours of a Monday morning supporting our favourite golfer at a Major. We think it’s somehow related to the fact we play the game whenever we get the chance, follow it on social media and practise our swings around the office. But it’s not that.

A passion for golf is a kid being so obsessed with the game that he’ll hunt for used beer bottles and use these to ‘putt’ a golf ball around his backyard. And later, as a professional, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep playing the game, to keep competing, and sometimes to even get to the next tournament. Even if it means walking for four hours in the Namibian desert.

Lindani Ndwandwe is what a passion for golf is all about.

From the moment he first discovered the game through his brother, Mandla, who worked as a caddie at Beachwood Country Club in Durban, Ndwandwe has lived to play it competitively. He followed in his brother’s footsteps and entered the game as a caddie.

After joining KwaZulu-Natal’s junior golf foundation thanks to the patronage of a fellow caddie, Ndwandwe’s talent became obvious to all around him.

In 1997 he won the KwaZulu-Natal Match Play and Stroke Play titles. He turned professional a year later and in 2001 won the Sunshine Tour’s Western Cape Classic, beating Richard Kaplan by a single stroke to become only the second black golfer to win on the Sunshine Tour. Then he claimed his second Sunshine Tour title at the 2009 Highveld Classic.

Now 47 years old, he was playing at South African Opens when Louis Oosthuizen was competing in them as a young amateur, and he competed alongside Mark McNulty, who he still describes as a role model for him in the game. ‘What an absolute gentleman,’ he says.

Those are the career highlights of a golfer whose fellow professionals will say has the softest hands around the green of anybody in the game.

And then for years, Ndwandwe went quiet. He would pop up at a tournament qualifier here or there, but the familiar face on the Sunshine Tour was no longer as regular as in the past. The stark reality was that while passion gives you the dream to chase, money is quite literally the petrol that gets you there.

‘For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to play on Tour. There is no life like Tour life. When I do get to tournaments these days, it feels like that is where I’m supposed to be. Even with all the hassles of trying to get there and the travel issues and so on. When I get to a tournament, everything feels right,’ says Ndwandwe.

Tour life has certainly never been easy for Ndwandwe, and he still clearly remembers one of the worst moments.

‘Myself and Irvin Mazibuko were travelling to Namibia for a tournament, with our two caddies. We crossed the South African border, and then it’s quite a distance to the Namibian border post.

And for some reason the policeman on duty just refused us entry. The border closed, so we had to sit on the street corner there from 10pm until 8am the next day. Another policeman let us through, but we had to get from Upington to Windhoek for the tournament.

‘All we could do was hike. So we started walking. After about four hours of walking, a truck came came past and gave us a lift. But we had to sit in the back of the truck. We came to a roadblock and the policeman who stopped us wanted free gloves and golf balls, which we gave him. I’ll never forget that journey.’

They arrived in Windhoek the day before the tournament started.

‘We both missed the cut that week. I just remember my feet were killing me from that hike.’

With very little financial support throughout his career and needing to sustain his parents and siblings, Ndwandwe juggled life on Tour with a job at Durban Country Club and then at Beachwood. And the increasing pressure to provide for family – including his own – has seen him spend less time on Tour.

But even in his work, Ndwandwe displays a remarkable passion for the game to the extent that he will do anything to simply be involved.

‘I’ve worked as a course marshal, in the pro shop, as a general runaround, giving lessons if needed – whatever,’ he says.

‘But in my heart I’ve always wanted to compete. That’s hard when you don’t have the money to get from A to B. But I still believe I have it in me to be competitive on Tour. I always have that belief that there is a tournament week where I will shine.’

Born in Nongoma and then moving with his parents to Durban when he was seven, Ndwandwe’s lifelong love for golf was sparked by what he realised was a game you could play until you decided you wanted to stop.

‘I started by caddying for a junior golfer who was two years older than me. He saw my interest in the game. I had collected about 80 badly used golf balls, but I didn’t have a set of clubs. We used to collect old beer bottles and use the bottom of them to putt balls in our back garden. It was that junior golfer who gave me my first set of clubs.

‘Then I was very fortunate to have a fellow caddie who was a really good golfer sponsor me to become a part of the KwaZulu-Natal junior foundation. He pushed me to get involved there at a time when I was hesitant to do so, because I was this kid from the township and now I was going to play with these white boys. I was nervous about it. But when I got there, I loved it.’

For all those early nerves, Ndwandwe never doubted his ability.

‘Somehow, I could always see myself moving to the next level of the game. I was thinking of turning pro one day, and then all of a sudden one day I said to myself that there’s no tomorrow and I need to go for it now.’

As with most top amateurs, the transition to the professional ranks was an eye-opener for Ndwandwe.

‘I was a bit ahead of myself when I turned pro. I thought it would come easy. Then I missed 13 cuts and I realised, hang on, I needed to take a step back. So I changed my way of thinking. I rebuilt and started afresh.’

While his first win in 2001 was significant for South African golf, Ndwandwe admits that it was hardly life-changing in terms of his career.

‘I thought it might earn me a sponsorship or something, but nothing came from it. I decided I just needed to win more regularly then. But when I finished my matric, nobody in my household had work. So when I was offered a job at Durban Country Club, I took it. That wasn’t my plan. I wanted to play on Tour, but I was the only one in my family with a job. So then I started working, and that was it.’

But there is not a single sense of regret from Ndwandwe. Even when he looks at the opportunities being provided and created for this generation of golfers by the Sunshine Tour as part of its transformation objectives, Ndwandwe has a philosophical take on things.

‘Sure, I do wish I’d had the support back then in my career. But if I go back to my time, I had more opportunity compared to those before me like Gabriel Putsoe and John Mashego. And this current generation will realise they have had more than my generation did. I can see it building up, and it’s all on the guys now as to how they behave and manage it. I always say to myself that if you can’t jump now, maybe tomorrow you can jump higher.’

Much of Ndwandwe’s time now is spent ‘helping here and there’ at Beachwood and being a father to his five children, the youngest being five and the oldest now 24.

‘And when I have the money, I try to go out and play on Tour. When I do get to tournaments, half the golfers don’t know who I am. But there are some who still remember me and ask me where I’ve been. I just love that feeling of being part of this big family on Tour.

‘I’ll never get away from golf. Only a wheelchair will take me away from it.’

FACT FILE
Date and place of birth: 26 February 1975, Nongoma, KZN
Turned professional: 1998
Represents: Durban Country Club
Sunshine Tour wins: Two – 2001 Western Cape Classic, 2009 Highveld Classic
Playoff wins: One
Tournament top-10 finishes: 22
Low-round score: 61