Durban Indian Golfer In British Open

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28935, 1 July 1959, Page 15

Durban Indian Golfer In British Open

(Rec. 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, June 30. In 99 years the British open golf championship had known nothing like it, said the “News Chronicle” today.

Mr Sewsunker Sewgolum played a magnificent first round of 71.

Then he refused to enter the club house to change his drenched clothes and changed instead behind a bench in the caddies’ shop He said to his Scottish caddie: "Thank you, sir.” It was the first time a white man had carried his clubs. He is a left-hander who plays from a right-hander’s stance, with his hands the wrong way round.

He revealed that Curries Fountain, Durban, the golf club under which he entered, had no tees, no greens, no holes, no clubhouse. It was just a field, said the “News Chronicle.” He could not read or write. Back home his future seemed to stretch no further than a packer’s bench in a factory—and being a caddie for wealthy members of Durban’s Beachwood Club.

They paid him 3s a round. At Muirfield he paid his British caddie 10 times as much, said the newspaper. Mr Sewgolum, who was 30. and answered more readily to the nickname of “Papwa.” was an Indian from a shanty-town colony just outside Durban. Golf was his only hobby. Until seven weeks

ago he owned only four ancient clubs.

His performances were so fantastic that his employer, Mr Graham Wuff, an industrialist, presented him with a £l2O set of clubs and sent him to Britain in his private aeroplane.

Yesterday he proved himself among the front rank of worldclass golfers. But because of his colour he could not become a member of the South African Professional Golfers* Association and so could not compete in the world's sponsored professional tournaments—only in open championships, said the “News Chronicle.”

He said yesterday: "You must understand. I am a caddie But life is good. I have a wife, and I have three children, and I am .playing in the British open.”