Golf school opens in Zola

The first golfing facility at a Soweto school has opened at Kwadedangendlale High School in Zola, where students will be able to master the green.
EXPECT to see more young golfers come out of Soweto, following the opening of a new golf facility at Kwadedangendlale High School in Zola.

Minister Fikile Mbalula putts under the watchful eye of learnersMinister Fikile Mbalula putts under the watchful eye of learners
The Kwadedangendlale High School Golf Project was handed over at the school on 2 August amid much celebration. The facility, which consists of a putting green and practice nets, was donated by The Sports Trust in partnership with Nedbank and Sun International.

It is the first facility of its kind in Soweto and will be available for the whole community of Zola to use. The project comes after tireless efforts were made by Tebogo Mosiane, a local golfing coach.

Mosiane, who is also an administrator at the school, had countless meetings with The Sports Trust and other stakeholders in an effort to get them to consider developing golf in his community.

He says he has been teaching golf for over 10 years now, even though they did not have resources. In all, he teaches some 54 learners from five different schools including Kwadedangendlale High, neighbouring Sivuleleni Primary School and Pace Commercial School.

Now that they have the right equipment, his next desire is to set up a golfing league where the students can compete against each other.

The handover at Kwadedangendlale was attended by Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula, who commended the sponsors for developing sports in townships.

“The Sports Trust has since its inception been a catalyst for meaningful change in sport and recreation,” he said. “It is our intention and resolve to draw from The Sports Trust’s expertise and models as we shape and chart a developmental trajectory and transformation landscape for sport and recreation in South Africa and its people.”

Future golf starsFuture golf stars
His department intended on working with the trust to sharpen its interventions in developing sport around the country. “The lessons learned will also put us in the right position as we develop and finalise the case of sport.”

To officially launch the project, Mbalula and three learners made an opening put, and posed for photographs.

The principal of the school, Thomas Mnisi, also gave a few words of gratitude and promised the sponsors that they had not bet on a losing horse.“This day, The Sports Trust has earned the trust of the school because trust is earned and the trust has earned it,” he said.

Mnisi gave a brief history of the school and explained the meaning of the word “dedangendlale”. It is a Zulu word that loosely translates as “a huge maize field”. For the school, the name was symbolic of teachers planting seeds or feeding the ground so that one day it would produce food to feed nations, he explained.

The school had never obtained anything less than an 80 percent matric pass rate, he added.