Laureus Ambassador Jacques Kallis spent his career shattering cricket records but, as he told the latest edition of the ‘Power of Sport’ podcast, it’s a first-ever hole-in-one that could well be his personal sporting career highlight.
The former Proteas star is a featured guest in episode 7 of the Power of Sport, hosted by Jean Smyth, where he also reflected on his role as the coach of the Cape Town Knightriders ahead of the upcoming Global League T20, shared his thoughts on the impact that new Proteas head coach Ottis Gibson will have after a tough two years for the national team; and features in ‘Blitz’, our rapid-fire, either-or question series. Did he opt for Graeme Smith over Mark Boucher? Download using the links below to find out.
But it’s the recent memory from a course in the Lowveld that had the 41-year-old, who scored over 13,000 test runs and nearly 300 test wickets, most excited.
“It was probably something that I wasn’t really thinking about. We were playing in a charity day in Komatipoort up at Kambaku (GC). We had a very festive night the night before and I wasn’t feeling the strongest the following day so the last thing on my mind was trying to hole a hole-in-one, even though it’s something that I’ve wanted for a long time. (I) managed to put the ball down, hit a 7-iron 176m, second bounce into the hole. And then the festivities really started.”
Also in the episode, we conduct a unique online photographic ‘show and tell’ with adventurer Ron Rutland on the remarkable Longest Hole campaign that saw him and Adam Rolston making history, playing golf across Mongolia. The feat saw the two, and their trusted adopted stray dog UB, walk over 2,000kms and play over 20,000 shots in 82 days in aid of the Laureus Foundation and the South African Golf Development Board.
“I’m really looking forward to having a bit of quiet time to reflect on what we achieved physically, I don’t that we’ve grasped what we managed to pull off in terms of walking 2000kms across Mongolia. I’ve never done anything harder in my life. I look back at individual photographs, think back to individual moments and think: ‘my goodness, how did we..?’. It was a team effort, we had to push the cart up mountains, drag it through sand, put up with bleak weather and put up with the emotional and mental challenges.”
We also travel to Mauritius to find out about the Laureus SA national summit that saw ambassadors, project representatives and key stakeholders all come together to provide a platform for networking, training, knowledge sharing and ultimately creating a highly effective practice environment for all to benefit from.
Download the full ‘Power of Sport’ episode in iTunes. Also available on Omny Radio podcast.
