As the 2013 European tour began at Royal Durban Country Club in South Africa in December, the tour had a new member—take note of this name: Justin Walters. Like Branden Grace in 2012, here was another young man from South Africa on the verge of a breakthrough in the tough world of professional golf.
Also like Grace, Walters, 32, goes into his European tour campaign with just one backyard victory to his credit in the Sunshine Tour. Unlike Grace, who enjoyed a fairy-tale rise, it has been a grim journey for Walters. When he was four years old, Walters suffered a damaging and traumatic eye injury.
“I have 50 percent vision in my right eye. I suffer with double vision and lazy eye, you name it,” says Walters in the players’ lounge at Serengeti Golf and Wildlife Estate, where he was playing the 102nd South African Open in November.
“I fight a lot of conditions with it. When I was four years old, I had a pine needle go straight through my eye. I&#8217;ve had several operations, five or six, trying to help it. Right now, it&#8217;s as good as it&#8217;s going to get. I have a contact lens in my right eye. I&#8217;ve had it [the condition] so long, maybe it does hurt me, but I&#8217;m so used to it now. I can&#8217;t spend too much time dwelling on it.
Walters explains that overcast skies, rather than bright sunshine, are the biggest worry for him on the golf course.
“There will be several occasions when I&#8217;m out on the golf course when I can see two golf balls, four sets of shoes and my double vision really causes havoc. I wear Oakley sunglasses all the time, the guys take care of me and really get me through a day&#8217;s golf. They limit the fatigue on my eyes and help me do my job as good as I can.”
Securing playing privileges doesn&#8217;t come much tougher than playing the Challenge Tour for a full season, but that&#8217;s just what Walters did. The Challenge Tour, the secondary tour in Europe, provides 20 cards for the main European tour, via the season-long money list. Walters was outside the top 20, coming into the final event of the season in Italy, and needed a good finish to get his card. He wasn&#8217;t just playing for money; he was playing for his future.
Even after the first round he wasn&#8217;t lying well after a level par 71.
“I got off to a really slow start, and your back is against the wall. There was only one of two results—I was going to play well and get it done or I wasn&#8217;t.”
He played the next three rounds in 14 under par to finish fifth for the event. If Walters was two shots worse, he would have missed out on getting his card completely. In those circumstances, to come through and make the grade, shows great mental strength and determination—something that bodes well for the European main tour.
“The night before the final round, I was a little bit nervous and it was really tight. All the guys around me were right there or ahead of me. I knew I had to produce something that was half-decent. It was a very stressful day, but I got off to such a good start. I made the mental goal of not looking at a leader board the whole day. The conditions were tough and I was playing well. I managed to post a really good score given the conditions. When I tapped in for par on 18, that was the first time I looked at a leader board and saw I had managed to cross the finish line.”
Walters studied in the States at North Carolina State University, where he did business management and qualified cum laude. There he was roommates with fellow South African Garth Mulroy, who now campaigns on the US PGA Tour. Walters said the reason he went abroad was because of his father&#8217;s influence and having a back-up career, if the golf path did not pan out.
“My dad was quite hard on me, he really wanted to make sure I had a degree to go with me pursuing golf. At the time in South Africa, that wasn&#8217;t really possible. It was either a degree or you just played golf. It really improved my game and played a big role in where I am today.”
Walters explains the conditions in the States help make better-rounded players. Added to that is the high competition level at college, where the best players from around the world ply their future trade before turning professional.
“If you look at the PGA Tour and European Tour, a lot of the guys have gone through the college system. If you can show your worth there, it certainly gives you a good boost mentally and confidence to take on the pro ranks.
Walters is honest with his expectations—he doesn&#8217;t know what to expect, but with help of the healthy contingent of South Africans out on tour, he hopes to be able to cement his place among the top golfers in the world.
“I&#8217;m lucky that there&#8217;s a big tribe of South Africans playing there [in the European Tour]. I&#8217;ve already spoken to a couple of the players and the caddies, asking if they can take me under their wings and show me the ropes. I&#8217;ll be relying on them as much as I can and hopefully in a year&#8217;s time I can sit here and tell you more.”
Walters has conquered the pain of the pine needle of outrageous fortune, now he wants to conquer the world.

The Rising Star  With The Lazy Lucky Eye

Reflecting on the day’s golf during the 40-minute drive back to the hotel, on the outskirts of George, to me it looked like young Branden Grace had blown his chance of making history. He had managed to turn a four-shot advantage into a share of the lead, after the third round of the Volvo Golf Champions, giving the big names a golden opportunity to thwart him.
The taxi driver interrupted this reflection: “Do you think anyone will catch Branden tomorrow?”
I had to try and politely tell the driver I thought young Grace, who was a member of the nearby George Country Club, had no chance in the final round.
The driver, who later told me he went to school with Grace, picked up on the little faith I had in the 23-year-old, who was at the top of the leader board in the first fully sanctioned European tour event to be held in South Africa.
“I’m telling you, Branden wants it more than any of those other guys. Since he started playing in standard four, he’s been mad about this game,” said the driver with conviction.
<div id="attachment_499" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-499" class="size-large wp-image-499" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/137543593-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Branden Grace poses with the trophy after winning the playoff during the final round of the Volvo Golf Champions at The Links at Fancourt</div>
The other guys the driver spoke of were: Masters champion Charl Schwartzel; double US Open champion Retief Goosen; 2010 Open Championship winner Louis Oosthuizen and three-time Major winner Ernie Els.
Grace, whose parents owned a small restaurant in George, grew up among his heroes in a childhood which revolved around the golf course. He was part of the Ernie Els Foundation, set up by the Big Easy to identify new talent in South African golf, and his cousin is Sunshine Tour veteran Michiel Bothma. Grace enjoyed a remarkable amateur career, including a victory in the South African Amateur Stroke Play Championship in 2006 against a very strong international field. With the win, he was invited to the SA Open where he won the silver medal, finishing as the top amateur.
“Towards the end of school he hardly came to all the classes, he was always out on the course playing. Then when he did come to school, he’d pass the exams. The dude is talented,” said the driver.
I had just come from Grace’s press conference, where he fielded all the questions posed to him, but I noticed he had a resigned look about him, no doubt thinking that he had already let the tournament slip from his grasp.
Halfway through the final round, my prediction was coming true. Els was leading on 11 under par and Grace had fallen almost completely out of contention, playing the first four holes in three over par. Schwartzel and Goosen were also challenging.
Grace, who had only earned his European tour card through the gruelling European Tour Qualifying School barely a month prior in December, had finally come unstuck.
His victory at the Johannesburg Open a week before came on the very different Royal Johannesburg Country Club, and the Links at Fancourt, in the Western Cape, was also a different beast.
Nobody seemed to tell the man dubbed ‘Amazing Grace’, though, as he launched a birdie assault coming home.
Standing on the 18th tee, he was tied with Goosen and Els, who had already finished on 12 under.
The 18th is a reachable par five and a long hitter like Grace would be expected to birdie.
He did the hard work, reached the green in two and putted up to a couple of feet with his third shot. All that was left was to nudge home the four-footer for the win.
That was when disaster struck.
Grace missed.
He was now in a playoff with his childhood heroes, Goosen and Els.
Grace looked visibly sick after he threw away the chance to win outright.
The trio went back to the 18th tee for sudden death.
Els found trouble with his drive, while Goosen and Grace found the fairway.
Grace, like moments earlier, found the green with his approach and putted marginally closer than in regulation play.
The veterans weren’t able to birdie, and this time Grace was able to slam home the winning putt and let the world take notice.
With his second victory in as many weeks, Grace became the second-youngest player in European tour history to win back-to-back events. He also became the third Qualifying School graduate to win twice in the year after graduation.
Grace finally spoke about the nerves afterwards.
“I was lying in bed last night reading a couple of articles, and there were 14 Majors [winners] behind me chasing me… just standing on the tee with Ernie and Retief was unbelievable in the playoff. There was a calm about me, the whole playoff hole actually. I think I was more nervous and more pumped up going down the last hole when I walked up the fairway.”
“Knowing I’ve beaten Ernie and Retief in a playoff, I know that I can do it again.”
With Grace’s two wins, he leads the European Tour’s moneylist—The Race to Dubai—with earnings of 570,000 euros ($748,000) after four events and rising from 258 in the world rankings to inside the top 100. The boy from George has thrust himself into his rightful position among the world’s golfing elite.
The fresh face of golf is likely to be smiling all the way to the bank for many years to come.

Tag: Branden Grace

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