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Speaker 1: Big event happening at Staynes City outside of Johannesburg over

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Speaker 1: the weekend live golf tour coming here. I confess that

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Speaker 1: I don't follow it closely enough to know exactly what happened.

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Speaker 1: I do know that some very big name golf players

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Speaker 1: came here, the likes of Bryson de Chambeau, and I

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Speaker 1: also know that eight of the wealthier golfiers in the

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Speaker 1: world poor fellas had to fly commercial because either they

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Speaker 1: didn't get their paperwork in time or the Department of

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Speaker 1: Transport is inexcusably slow, depends on whose story you listen to,

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Speaker 1: but either way, they didn't get permission to land the

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Speaker 1: private planes that each of the eight own separately, so

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Speaker 1: the poor things had to fly commercially. I'm surprised they

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Speaker 1: were still able to play golf, and their private planes

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Speaker 1: were flown to Mexico, which means that they had to

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Speaker 1: leave Johannesburg again commercial and get to Mexico, where they

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Speaker 1: could then be reunited with their private planes. Should we

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Speaker 1: feel sorry for them? Craig Gray, Hello, that's a tough

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Speaker 1: life at the top of the supported. But the Craig

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Speaker 1: by what I've heard and seen and read since getting

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Speaker 1: back to South Africa late yesterday. It was a big thing,

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Speaker 1: this Love Golf Weekend at Stone City.

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Speaker 2: It was massive. You know, it actually exited my expectations.

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Speaker 2: Like you, I'm not I don't follow love golf incredibly closely.

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Speaker 2: In fact, golf has become a fractured I've sort of

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Speaker 2: fallen out of fallen out of love with it a

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Speaker 2: little bit. I used to cover a lot of golf,

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Speaker 2: but this event, so John ily watched it on TV.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't up at Stone City, but it felt like

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Speaker 2: I was watching a major, the crowds, the support the

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Speaker 2: players got. You know what was really nice. It was

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Speaker 2: the South African players obviously got great support, but it

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Speaker 2: was how the fans really got behind all the players

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Speaker 2: that was really encouraging. Support for everyone. Wasn't booze and

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Speaker 2: and you know that kind of vitual we had at

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Speaker 2: the Rider Cup last year, which was terrible, and it

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Speaker 2: just felt like a big tournament. It felt to me

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Speaker 2: like the ned Bank Golf Challenge in its absolute heyday,

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Speaker 2: when Annie Else and Sergio Garcia were winning around the

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Speaker 2: turn of the century. You know, that's when I felt

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Speaker 2: the Nedbank Golf Challenge was probably at its biggest and

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Speaker 2: this felt a lot like that. And as you mentioned,

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Speaker 2: and you're intro Bryce and de Chamba, John Rahm. You know,

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Speaker 2: two of the top five players in the world going

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Speaker 2: head to head in a playoff, you know, in dramatic

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Speaker 2: with the rain coming down and the team competition on

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Speaker 2: the line. It was really thrilling drama. It was great

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Speaker 2: sport and you know, it was an exceptional tournament and

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Speaker 2: a real success for live golf and for South African golf.

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Speaker 2: But the one thing that probably needs to be rectified

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Speaker 2: is that the Sunshine Tour was completely not part of it.

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Speaker 2: And the Sunshine Tour is blackburn a professional golf in

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Speaker 2: this country.

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Speaker 1: So how does one rectify that? I mean, I don't

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Speaker 1: know what the blands are for live golf. I don't

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Speaker 1: know whether this was meant to be the first of

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Speaker 1: a series of repeat tournaments like this. So putting South

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Speaker 1: Africa onto the global circuit for this tournament, is there

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Speaker 1: a way of integrating Sunshine Tour, which had a fair

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Speaker 1: amount of courage. And I keep getting complaints from listeners

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Speaker 1: about why we haven't had the results of the Sunshine

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Speaker 1: Tour tournaments that have been happening, Why our sports desk

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Speaker 1: hasn't covered those as well as golfing fans think we

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Speaker 1: should have.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we have the same problem. I mean we we

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Speaker 2: are work dating Meverick and very few sports reporters and

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Speaker 2: there's just so much golf. But they do do a

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Speaker 2: good job and we keep producing world class players. But

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Speaker 2: to go back to your question, how did they integrate them? Well, unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: at the moment, the Sunshine Tour is obviously aligned with

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Speaker 2: the DP World Tour, which is the old European Tour,

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Speaker 2: and they are part of you know, they closely aligned

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Speaker 2: with the PGA Tour and the Love Golf PGA too

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Speaker 2: huge continues and so purely from contractually, actually the sun

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Speaker 2: Hunter couldn't become involved in Love Golf. But I do

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Speaker 2: understand they will be meeting in a couple of weeks

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Speaker 2: time with Love Golf and with DP World Tour and

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Speaker 2: to see because you know, for instance, the alternate players

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Speaker 2: will Love Golf should have been from the Sunshrone Tour.

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Speaker 2: That that's how it normally works. And wherever they go

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Speaker 2: in the world, Mexico, Hong Kong, it will be Asian

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Speaker 2: tour players. You know, if one of the golf or

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Speaker 2: two of the live golf players can't get to the

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Speaker 2: venue flight issues or injuries or sickness or personal issues,

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Speaker 2: then that's what goes to a local pro. And in

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Speaker 2: this case there were no Sunshrunt Tour pros a lout

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Speaker 2: because they aligned with the DP World Tour. So you know,

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Speaker 2: that's a little bit unfortunate. So hopefully that will be

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Speaker 2: rectified down the line. I mean, you know, there's also

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Speaker 2: criticism about love golf itself that hasn't gone away. Some

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Speaker 2: people are not happy that South Africa is embracing love

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Speaker 2: golf given the SARDI, you know, the backing from the

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Speaker 2: public investment fund in SARDI. I think we're beyond that now.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the whole world being business with Saudi Arabia.

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Speaker 2: You know, I don't know why golf should be beaten with

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Speaker 2: a particular stick because it seems to me that everyone'm

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Speaker 2: doing business with Saudi Arabia.

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Speaker 1: And craigly the organization. Most of it, by the sounds

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Speaker 1: of things, would have been done by live golf, but

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Speaker 1: there always got to be people on the ground. And

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Speaker 1: perhaps this allays any concerns that might be had around

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Speaker 1: South Africa's a continue ability to host big events. We've

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Speaker 1: got the Cricket World Cup coming here next year, and

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Speaker 1: it was really interesting to be in vic Falls over

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Speaker 1: the weekend and to see that the news Tunya Oval

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Speaker 1: is going to host one of those games, and it

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Speaker 1: doesn't really look as if much work has been done

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Speaker 1: getting them Tunya Oval ready for that. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: don't know who's going to be playing there, certainly going

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Speaker 1: to be Australia against England. It will be with Zimbabwe

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Speaker 1: against Bangladesh. Maybe I don't know, but perhaps again a

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Speaker 1: message to the world South Africa can do these things absolutely.

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Speaker 2: I mean the tournament as I wasn't in stain City,

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Speaker 2: but it looked like a roaring success. I mean, there's

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Speaker 2: been a few videos circulating of some drunk stugs having

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Speaker 2: a go at each other in one or two of

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Speaker 2: the bars. That's a bit unfortunate. That can happen at

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Speaker 2: any sporting event. They might wrunt it up to security

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Speaker 2: because the video footage I've seen of that it didn't

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Speaker 2: look like the security knew what to do or just

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Speaker 2: sort of stood around watching it happen. So maybe there

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Speaker 2: will have to be a little bit more work done

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Speaker 2: on that side of things. But generally, I mean, you know,

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Speaker 2: controlling over one hundred thousand people probably on Saturday and Sunday,

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Speaker 2: upwards of thirty five thousand people on the course per day.

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Speaker 2: You know, it was quite an undertaking, and in the state

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Speaker 2: and Kate and Mackenzie and the Sunday media briefing. Of course,

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Speaker 2: Katon has never shy up to market something. He jumped

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Speaker 2: on and said, we want two hundred and fifty thousand people, yeah,

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Speaker 2: next year, and the pert sea of Stay City properties

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Speaker 2: looked horrified, and you know, he said, well, we might

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Speaker 2: need to build some more bridges because medgine having to

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Speaker 2: accommodate tour hundred and fifty thousand people at an estate.

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Speaker 2: So it was really well run. The TV coverage was

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Speaker 2: very good, I must say, and I kept people informed apparently.

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Speaker 2: All the postmatch entertainment was great. And I suppose it

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Speaker 2: came with a price tag of putting it on. At

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Speaker 2: fifty four million dollars, he would expected to be pretty

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Speaker 2: well run with nine hundred million rounds.

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Speaker 1: Graig, great, thank you very much. Indeed, Daily Maverick Sports

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Speaker 1: editor