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21st June 2017 | Big Easy Tour

Cycling legend McLean to inspire Big Easy Tour pros

Four-time Giro del Capo winner and South African cycling legend Andrew McLean will talk to members of the Sunshine Tour’s Gary Player Class of 2017-18 during a boot camp which gets underway on Sunday June 25 at the Momentum World of Golf at Woodmead.

McLean, who is also is the driving force behind the wildly popular SuperCycling television show and thee brains behind the Cycle Lab stores, will talk to the professional golfers about professional preparation as part of a five-day camp which will help the players step up to the next level as golfers.

The Gary Player Class of 2017-18 is the Sunshine Tour’s main development squad for previously disadvantaged professional golfers and benefits from the longstanding and continued support of the South African Golf Development Board (SAGDB), that was founded in 1999 by Mr Johann Rupert and has become the official body for golf development in South Africa, as well as the Ernie Els & Fancourt Foundation (EEFF) in the collective effort to use golf to improve the lives of disadvantaged South Africans.

The 32 players who form part of the class will be put through their paces on a number of fronts by people from across the spectrum of skills required from golf, with work being done by a sports psychologist, a nutritionist, financial advisers, as well as a selection of golf coaches and technical experts.

They will have swing and club assessments, putter fittings and analysis done on their swing techniques. And then they will be given advice on making practice count, and they will take away personalised booklets helping them replicate tournament conditions when they practice – making their efforts much more purpose-driven than the old ‘beating balls’ approach.

There will be talks on the role of nutrition in golf, as well as on life skills like goal-setting, creating effective resumes and marketing themselves. There will also be input from the Sport Exchange, whose services include legal, wealth management, mentorship, retirement and career development.

The tough daily sessions will begin and end with gym sessions, with the goal of helping the players to live the lifestyle of professional athletes.

Players in the Gary Player Class of 2017-18 include the likes of Sunshine Tour winners James Kamte, Heinrich Bruiners and Lindani Ndwandwe, as well as up-an-coming players like Sipho Bujela and Jacquin Hess, who are graduates of the SAGDB programme, and Siphiwe Siphayi.

They will all draw inspiration from the likes of McLean, who said to Entrepreneur magazine in May, “Success, I believe, comes from loving what you do. I am typically up before 4am to cycle, present on SuperSport, and am very active within Cycle Lab. So, I have a lot of things to do, and I don’t think I would be able to sustain the pace if it wasn’t for the fact that I love what I do. The passion that I have for the sport drives me to keep going.”