Quinton Mtyala
WITH a dwindling number of active golfers, Cape Town’s only “Jewish” golf club, King David, has been forced to merge with the Mowbray golf club and will have to pay a R60 million “dowry” for the lifeline.
After almost 60 years, players will be teeing off for the last time tomorrow as the club, which has been struggling for the last few years, closes its doors and moves to Mowbray from Friday.
The club was opened in 1956 by a group of Jewish golfers, not far from the then newly opened Cape Town International Airport, in response to anti-Semitism from golf clubs in Cape Town where Jewish players were not welcome.
But with Cape Town’s dwindling Jewish population of about 16 000 and other attractions opening up over the years, membership at King David dropped to 380.
Club president Stan Boiskin said during the one-year transition phase in which King David would be merging with Mowbray there would be a co-management structure in place.
The first priority for the club, when it finally leaves the area, would be to secure the ground against criminals and vandals.
“We have to secure the land, we haven’t sold it yet,” said Boiskin.
He wouldn’t say whether the club had done a valuation on the land which borders Airport Industria and the working-class suburb of Montana.
While King David’s owners will be seeking a buyer for the land, Boiskin said in the meanwhile its greens would be used as a nursery for the Mowbray course.
Along with the R60m “dowry” payment to the Mowbray golf club, an undisclosed lump sum will also be paid when the latter’s lease from the City of Cape Town, which expires in 2020, is renewed.
Boiskin said he had been playing at King David since 1959 and felt sad the club had to move. “I’ve never had a hole in one and leaving there means I’ve got unfinished business,” said Boiskin.
While he was sad to leave, he said King David’s situation was not unique and even in America golf clubs were closing down all the time.
“There are not enough young golfers coming to the fairways. (It seems) they’re playing other sports,” said Boiskin.
And extending their stay at the current location would have meant that the members of the club would have lost more money. “We’re not making money at all. We were not getting new members and the average age (of our membership) is over 60,” said Boiskin.
Club pro John Sangqu said he had been a member at King David since 1999.
He started at the club as a caddy while he was still in high school. “My older brother was caddying and we’d go to school during the week and caddy on the weekends,” said Sangqu.
He said a lot of money was lost when the greens deteriorated after the club’s sprinklers were stolen three years ago.
“People did not want to play here, in the sand. We didn’t get too many people coming in,” said Sangqu.
He said King David was the first golf club in Cape Town to open to all races in the early 1980s and was once a preferred golf course for people such as Tony Yengeni.
David Maart, who started working at King David at the age of 11 as a caddy in 1964, said staff at the club realised that there was trouble brewing two years ago.
“It was bad management, they didn’t manage the club properly. They wanted this club to be like Erinvale (in Somerset West). They wanted to spend lots of money to upgrade the course, but our location is not suited to that (sort of development),” said Maart.
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