South Africa: All Part of the Game

There are several things rather remarkable about South African Golfer Sewsunker Sewgolum. One, of course, is his name, which comes from his Indian forebears. The second is his unorthodox, cross-wristed golf grip (he puts his left hand under his right). And the third is the fact that he can even play golf at all in a land where, by law, whites share the game only with whites, and nonwhites with nonwhites. Last week Sewgolum found himself the center of one of the most ludicrous episodes in the history of the sport—but about par for Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd's apartheid course.

It all started in the first round of the South African P.G.A. tournament at Germiston, when both Sewgolum and South Africa's U.S. Open Champion Gary Player drew heavy galleries of whites and nonwhites. Police tried to chase off the nonwhites but got nowhere. So, as the second round opened the next day, the government hauled out its trusty racial iron and took a hefty swing. Police enforced tighter separation of the crowds, posted two agents with Sewgolum to keep the whites at a safe distance, and summarily banned Sewgolum from any further tournaments after the South African P.G.A., including the Natal Open, which he won last year. If Player was bothered by such unsportsmanlike treatment, he did not show it. "I play golf," he remarked. "I don't meddle in politics." In South Africa, they are apparently one and the same game.