The Golf Tournament. Be there!
You’ve got to be there, you know it. It’s one of the most prestigious tournaments on the golfing calendar. The Golf Tournament. It’s nice, because it’s not hosted. It’s not in aid of anything. It’s still sponsored by Coca-Cola, I think, but I suspect that it soon won’t be. So it’ll be like you and your mates down at your local club: totally unremarkable, except that you’ll be playing with Gary Player, Mark McNulty, John Bland and Vincent Tshabalala, and the proceeds go to buying drinks afterwards.
This is the farce that is (or rather, was) the annual Nelson Mandela Invitational, traditionally hosted by Gary Player. First, Desmond Tutu echoes a call by George Monidiot to boycott Gary Player because one of the many golf course he designed happens to be in Burma, and Monidiot supports a boycott of anyone who does business with Burma because he doesn’t like the Burmese junta. Granted, who does like that backward, murderous regime?
Gary Player has been good enough for the organisers for seven years running, so allegations about a business deal in Burma five years ago, or worse, his alleged support for Apartheid in the 1960s, really don’t wash. Now, suddenly, he’s a pariah? Besides, there are no sanctions against Burma, and there is disagreement over whether there should be. The course was built at a time when pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi had been released and things were looking more positive than they do today. South Africa just recently voted against a UN resolution to place pressure on the regime, citing some procedural nonsense for what really was teenage rebellion: “Yay, we’re on the Security Council now, so we’ll throw our new-found weight around by proving that we don’t have to vote for anything the US supports.”
Essentially, current events in Burma provided an opportunity for political grandstanding by a far-left fool who masquerades as a journalist, and a priest, and they jumped at the chance, stomping on Gary Player’s head in the process.
Three weeks ago, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, which owns the event, reportedly withdrew the invitation to Gary Player, despite the flimsy grounds for the boycott call.
Now, with four weeks to go to the tournament, and the player list almost complete, it’s withdrawing. Completely. And taking its name with it. So it can officially sue, someone, whoever now organises it, for hosting this site.
It’s a disgrace. It’s arrogant bullying and grandstanding. It’s politically incompetent. It’s going to cost someone a lot of money. If this disaster turns out to reflect badly on the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, it has only its trustees to thank.
It is actually completely ridiculous.
I personally don’t fall for all the Gary Player PR persona halo stuff, but seriously, this situation is terrible.
How on earth did things go so badly so quickly?
From the website I linked to, which as of this morning (8:20 SA time) still says “Nelson Mandela Invitational, presented by Coca-Cola, hosted by Gary Player”, and from Gary Player’s statement on 12 October 2007, which is the most recent comment on the subject on the tournament website, I suspect (though I don’t know for sure) that he ignored the withdrawal of his invitation “in any specific capacity”. Otherwise, I can’t see why the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund withdrew after it already gave him the boot.
As I wrote before, I’m not going to take Gary Player’s word that he’s a good guy, nor am I defending his character. I do, however, defend him on this particular issue, given the particular grounds cited for the boycott.
Although I share his dismay at events in Burma (as I wrote here), though I think Desmond Tutu is wrong on this issue, and though I disagree with some of his politics, I — like most South Africans — have deep respect for the man’s character and moral standing. I guess it is this moral authority that swayed the Children’s Fund trustees. I may understand the pressure, but understanding and condoning are two different things. Not only were they terribly unfair to Player, I think they harmed both South African interests and their own.
A charity such as that, founded by such an august person, should stand above the politics of the day.