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Ernie Els has lost his top spot on the PGA Tour’s money list, and he’s dropped one spot on the world golf rankings.
The good news for South Africa is that Lee-Anne Pace has entrenched her position atop the Ladies European Tour order of merit with another victory.
Even first-round losers at the US Open tennis tournament will earn R140,000 – with the singles winners to earn R12.5-million each.
Even thought the IAAF has cleared Caster Semenya to compete, not all her rivals are happy about it.
Caster Semenya, who from nowhere ran the world’s fastest 800m time in 2008 a month or so before winning gold at the world championships, achieved her best effort of 2010 so far at the weekend – 1min 59.90sec in Berlin.
That places her an impressive sixth in the Commonwealth, but only 30th in the world.
Tennis may have made strides to level the earning gap between men and women players, but golf still has some way to go.
American swim star Amanda Beard – the ex-girlfriend of Ryk Neethling – is looking at competing at her fifth Olympics in London 2012.
That’s amazing longevity. Neethling himself was an ageing warrior at his fourth Olympics in Beijing 2008. Veteran Roland Schoeman will compete at his fourth Games if he makes the team for London.
At her first Games in Atlanta 1996, Beard played second fiddle to SA’s breaststroke queen Penny Heyns, who became the first (and so far only) woman to win both the 100m and 200m races at a single Games.
The schedule for next year’s Tri-Nations competition has been released, and it will end with the Australia v New Zealand fixture in Brisbane just two weeks before the 2011 World Cup begins with the All Blacks hosts taking on Tonga on September 9.
The Springboks’ last match is against New Zealand in Port Elizabeth on August 20.
There are two ways of looking at this:
1. The Tri-Nations teams could peak going into the World Cup
2. The teams could be burnt out by the time they get into the knockout stages of the World Cup.
Perhaps a third alternative is that it could benefit the Springboks (who finish the Tri-Nations one week earlier) than Australia and New Zealand.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
