Dunhill tip return

Extract, Lewine Mair, The Telegraph, 29 November 2001

The first news to come out of the Nedbank Golf Challenge, alias the $2 million tournament, is that the Dunhill Links Championship, which was wiped from the European Tour’s schedule after press criticism of this year’s introduction of a new pro-celebrity format, could be reinstated next year.

Iain Banner, the South African who is in charge of Dunhill sporting events all over the world, said yesterday that he was feeling positive about the tournament's future. "We're busy working on it," he assured the South African press.

In the meantime Ernie Els, this week's defending champion, used his pre-tournament press conference to complain about what was said about the Dunhill by the British golfing media. He hoped the journalists had not done "too much damage" to an event which players and celebrities had thoroughly enjoyed.

Els was right that the competitors had had a week to remember in Scotland, but there are other people to consider when discussing the success of such a tournament.

What of those locals who helped with scoring over the three venues and who felt as if they had been called upon to serve at a private party? The media had a genuine grievance in that the sponsors were so busy attending to the players and celebrities that they failed to keep the journalists abreast of events. Where were they, for example, when they were needed to explain why they had taken the unprecedented step of slashing the handicaps of 39 of their amateur competitors?...........