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Brendon De Jonge — how it all started

Sport
HE may now be one of the best professional golfers on the continent, but at the age 14 Brendon De Jonge was still torn between golf and cricket

HE may now be one of the best professional golfers on the continent, but at the age 14 Brendon De Jonge was still torn between golf and cricket, before a school assignment on the life of a professional golfer at St Johns College proved the turning point.

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REPORT BY DANIEL NHAKANISO

Tasked with writing an essay on the life of a professional golfer while at the school, Brendon produced a well-written article on the life of current world number one, Tiger Woods, then a fresh faced teenager who had taken the world of golf by storm.

“The essay was so well written that his teachers were so impressed,” Brendon’s father Rick said in an exclusive interview at their Peacehaven home in Avondale.

“It was basically all about Tiger Woods and I think in the back of his mind he had already made the decision that he wanted to be a pro golfer.”

Opening up for the first time to the local media about their son’s rise from a multi-talented young sportsman in Mount Pleasant, where they raised him up to a successful PGA Tour professional, Rick was accompanied by his wife Rose during the interview.

The couple revealed that before deciding to concentrate on golf, Brendon had also made a mark as a cricketer and could have gone on to play Test cricket for Zimbabwe if he had not settled for golf.

So talented in cricket was young Brendon that the then Zimbabwe cricket development coach Andy Pycroft drove to the De Jonge residence in a bid to convince the boy to take up the sport seriously.

Pycroft, the former national team selector and Zimbabwe A coach, is now a member of the Elite Panel of International Cricket Council (ICC) Match Referees.

Brendon, who went to St Johns Preparatory School for his primary education and St Johns College for his high school education, even made the national Under-13 cricket team selected after the annual Partridges Week.

“It was at St Johns College that Brendon really shone as a cricketer really. He made it into the Zimbabwe Under-13 team selected after the Partridges Week and became a leading member of the various age-group teams, but had to make the choice later on,” Brendon’s mother Rose said.

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Rick, who thought his son’s future lay in cricket, also fondly remembers the Pycroft visit.

“I remember Mr (Andy) Pycroft coming to me when Brendon was about 17 and saying they wanted him for the cricket side. I said to them he’s going to play golf, he had already made his decision by then, but that’s just how talented he was in cricket.

“At one stage, I even wanted him to play cricket myself instead of golf because then it was quite a useful career, but I was proved wrong completely. We are all happy that he managed to do well in golf, but he was also quite a good cricketer,” Rick said.

However, Rick, a retired banker and a former rugby player, will be the first to admit that his son made the right choice. Since earning his PGA Tour card at Q-school in 2007, Brendon has earned a whopping

$8 203 668 on tour and this past season he raked in $1 795 244 from 30 events he took part in.

Rick, together with his wife Rose, are still members of Wingate Golf Club — the same club where Brendon started playing golf at the age of seven.

He said when Brendon finally decided to concentrate on golf, the changeover was routine as he went on to be the country’s leading amateur golfer for two years in a row (1999-2000).

De Jonge's father Rick (left) and mother Rose relax at their home in Harare
De Jonge’s father Rick (left) and mother Rose relax at their home in Harare

In 1999, Brendon would win the Zimbabwe Amateur Championship by a record 14 shots, beating the previous record held by Nick Price, who by then was one of the best golfers on the planet.

Brendon has in the past said breaking the record is one of his biggest thrills in golf.

By virtue of being the country’s leading amateur, Brendon was selected to represent the country at the annual Orange Bowl Junior Championship in the US.

“He qualified for the Orange Bowl Junior Championship in the US for the first time in 1998, but even though he immediately impressed scouts from US universities, he was too young then. He went back to the US the following year and it was then that he was spotted by the coach at Virginia Tech University.

“Even though he didn’t finish that high up on the leaderboard, they were very impressed with his all-round game. The coach at Virginia Tech, Mr Jay Hardwick, phoned us and told us that they were offering him a 100% scholarship. There were other universities that had offered him scholarships, but we settled for Virginia,” Rick said.

The scholarship allowed Brendon to play in the university’s golf team, while he also studied for a degree in Consumer Studies.

Rick said he attributed his son’s success to the country’s education system.

“I think the schools in this country played a very crucial role in his upbringing and instilling those virtues about the importance of hard work and discipline. It is very hard to manage to strike a balance between sport and education.

“We are glad that he managed to balance both his academics with golf, but it was with some difficulty of course, but he was a hard worker and a good scholar.”

Born in Harare 33 years ago, Brendon is the last born in a family of two, together with his brother (12 years his senior) Richard, who now works for a Japanese tobacco company in Geneva, Switzerland.

Brendon’s mother says it was Brendon who fell in love with golf at an early age together with his elder brother.

“Brendon started playing golf when he was seven at Wingate Golf Club, assisted of course by my husband Rick and his older brother Richard who is also a keen golfer. We encouraged him.

“He (Brendon) used to spend most of the time on the golf course to try and play like his older brother and he became quite good at it. It was at about that time that he became involved in junior golf.

“Roger Baylis was in charge of junior golf in the country at the time. I remember he was very keen right from the start so much that he made a miniature golf course around our house in Northwood, Mt Pleasant, and would work on his game then,” Rose said.

Rick said they religiously follow their son’s progress on television and get worried when he misses the cut.

“We always follow his progress from here. Obviously with the different time zones, it’s sometimes difficult, but now with the latest technology we can record the footage and watch later.

“Everytime he misses the cut, we are always worried because if you don’t play well in a season and you lose your Tour card then you have to start all over again,” Rick said.

The De Jonges and the rest of Zimbabwe will no doubt be following Brendon’s progress when he represents the country at the ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Australia from November 21-24.