SA quartet selected for Indonesian challenge
30 April 2023 – GolfRSA has selected four rising stars to fly the flag for South Africa in the 2023 Ciputra Golfpreneur Junior World Championship in Indonesia at the end of May.
GolfRSA National Squad pair Kyra van Kan and Lisa Coetzer will compete in the Girls Division, while South African Golf Development Board duo Devon Valentine and Zinan Maimane will tee it up in the Boys Division at the Damai Indah Golf & Country Club in Jakarta.
“Unfortunately, this prestigious event could not be staged since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and we are delighted to have the Ciputra Golfpreneur Junior World Championship back on the international golfing calendar,” said GolfRSA CEO Grant Hepburn. “It was fantastic to receive an invitation from the organisers and have the opportunity again to send four of our young junior talents to Jakarta this year.”
GolfRSA No 1 and reigning SA Amateur champion Van Kan will compete in the Girls A competition (ages 15-18) and 12-year-old Coetzer, who recently won the Girls U-12 Individual title in the Nomads SA Girls Rose Bowl Championship presented by Sun International, will line up in the Girls B competition (ages 12-14). The pair will also compete in the Girls Team championship.
Valentine, a member of the victorious Eastern Province team that swept to victory in the 2022 South African U-19 Inter-Provincial last December, will line up in in the Boys A Competition (ages 15-18), while 14-year-old Gauteng North junior Maimane will compete in the Boys B Competition (ages 12-14). Valentine and Maimane will also participate in the Boys Team championship.
In South Africa’s last appearance in 2019, Megan Streicher, Kieron van Wyk, Samantha Whateley and Rorisang Nkosi did the country proud with superb results.
Since the quartet’s international debut in Jakarta, Van Wyk has excelled at college in the United States and plays at No 1 for the College of Charleston. Streicher, also at college in America, won the 2021 SA Women’s Stroke Play and was a finalist in the SA Amateur Championship. Nkosi won the 2020 Nomads SA U-15 Championship, and this year, Whateley was crowned the SA Women’s Stroke Play champion.
Former junior participants from South Africa who excelled in Jakarta have gone on to great heights.
Caitlyn Macnab, a two-time SA Amateur champion, has been a star for the Texas Christian University Women’s Golf Team over the last two years. Kaleigh Telfer, Cole Stevens and Kaiyuree Moodley represented South Africa in the Youth Olympics. Stevens and Moodley are both at college in the United States, while Telfer, who graduated from Auburn University last year, recently closed out her debut on the Sunshine Ladies Tour with a top 5 finish in the Investec Order of Merit.
Kiera Floyd, who won the SA Women’s Stroke Play Championship last year, made a great start in the pro ranks this season, while Jordan Rothman, the 2018 SA Amateur champion, is now playing for the University of Kansas women’s golf team.
Franklin Manchest and Steven le Roux, who played in the 2016 edition, both compete on the Sunshine Tour. Cara Gorlei, another former SA Amateur champion, campaigns on the Sunshine Ladies Tour and on the Womens All Pro Tour in the United States after graduating from Arkansas University, and former SA Women’s Stroke Play champion Casandra Alexander – a three-time Sunshine Ladies Tour winner who competed in Jakarta in 2017 – recently won her second team event on the Ladies European Tour.
“The Ciputra Golfpreneur Junior World Championship annually draws more than 140 participants from across Asia and as far afield as the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia and presents our juniors with a test of their talent and international exposure, as well as the opportunity to forge new friendships and explore a new culture,” Hepburn said. “We are incredibly grateful to the organisers of this prestigious international event for extending the invitation to GolfRSA to participate in this event.”
The tournament will be played on the Pantai Indah Kapuk (PIK) Course at Damai Indah Golf & Country Club from 30 May to 1 June.