Harry live from Joburg

By Harry Emanuel Last updated: 14th January 2010

Last weekend I stayed up and cheered on Geoff Ogilvy in Hawaii as he put in another very impressive performance, particularly on and around the greens, which also put some well needed Rand in my bank account.

Before you write in with accusations of 'after timing' I did mention in my last blog of 2009 that Kapalua 'could be a good opportunity for Geoff Ogilvy to get off to another fast start.'

I covered 7,500 miles going door to door (Lavender Hill in London to The Peech Hotel in Johannesburg) in just under 24 hours. I'm going ask Santa for a private jet next year!

The Hotel is superb, check it out (www.thepeech.co.za), and if you ever come to Joburg I thoroughly recommend it.

On my current average mileage per week I'll have been the equivalent of 14 times around the world come Christmas. I may have to get another house plant to offset my carbon foot print.

It's great to be back out on Tour and at this week's golf tournament in particular which is unique in many respects.

A larger than normal field with 210 players made up of a lonely Austrian, Brazilian, Canadian, Fin, Dutchman, Norwegian, Taiwanese, Paraguayan, Portuguese and a Swiss, a pair of Germans, Italians, Northern Irish, Kiwis and Americans, a hat-trick of Zimbabweans and Danes, a quad of Welshman, Aussies, Irish and Spaniards, a decahedron of Swedes and Frenchmen, 35 Englishmen and 98 south Africans, gives some local players a unique opportunity to play in a high profile tournament.

Walking around you see an awful lot of players without names on their bags. When my driver Alex was dropping me off on Tuesday a man came up to me and asked if he could carry my bag. I gave him my computer bag thinking the Royal Johannesburg & Kensington Golf Club was offering a service that befitted their name.

When he enquired as to the location of my golf clubs I explained I wasn't playing this week at which point he smiled, explained he was a caddie and handed me back my bag. We both went our separate ways slightly disappointed.

There's been a lot of talk about last week and the improvement in the standard of South African golf given the leaderboard was stacked with local players on the final day.

A quick reality check is required because the greens at the African Open have so much grain that they are virtually impossible to read even for the local players and God help everyone else.

Thomas Aiken who finished second said: "Putting becomes an intellectual debacle and you have to find the grain and slope and put it all together. This week it's more about slopes which are not ridiculous like some modern courses." I expect to see more Europeans featuring this week.

The other thing that's fairly unique this week is high altitude which sees the ball travel 10% further. The maths is easy I'm told as the scorecard is in yards and metres and you just pretend the metres are yards. Although it begins to get interesting if the temperature rises over 30 degrees as the ball really starts to fly.

For some like Charl Schwartzel who grew up in Johannesburg it's easy and he is pretty excited this week as he is hitting the ball as well as last week. Others like Richard Finch and even last year's winner Anders Hansen find it more difficult.

Anders said he had a few shots in his practice round that went a lot further than he expected. Mind you he hasn't played much in his three frozen weeks off in Denmark and he is also using the new grooves.

Others like Louis Oosthuizen, who returns after the birth of his daughter Jana, are sticking with the old grooves for the final week. He didn't get on with the set of new grooves he tried at the Dunhill and missed the cut.

The tournament is played over two very good old style golf courses where players have to shape the ball off the tee and stay out of the rough as you can't roll the ball up and onto the greens.

It's been very wet so the courses are playing long and the greens are slopey, surrounded by bunkers, run offs and some thick rough so your iron play has to be spot on. It will be a tough week.

Darren Clarke told me: "You have to hit driver a lot and the way the rough is you can't get away with any loose shots. It's so demanding if you miss fairways you're going to struggle." He puts his poor 2009 down to bad putting and has done a lot of work in the last six weeks with Phil Kenyon.

With so many factors to consider I'm not having a bet till Saturday but in the Sony Open I'm going to follow the Wise One and have a few quid on Steve Stricker.

One thing I must admit to quietly enjoying in South Africa is opening conversations with talk on a taboo subject - England's lead in the Test Match Series.

Shaun Pollock, who plays off 1 and was giving James Kingston (playing off the back tees) three shots in their match, didn't really want to talk about it. He was pretty distraught saying his team "only need to improve 2-5% to win and drawing the series will be better than losing." But fair play he did say through gritted teeth, "Credit to the English."

My newly purchased running shoes got their first try out this week - walking the golf course.

Another New Year's resolution was to give up drinking for January but with a day out at the cricket looming I thought it would be foolhardy if not downright irresponsible to my liver if I don't prepare properly.

You have to accept some things just don't change at least I can take a little bit of comfort from the fact the Tiger is still making headline news even in South Africa. Totsiens!

Harry Emanuel