The Chronicle 2022

I am incredibly proud to say that after 30 years our senior team have made a comeback! Ruben Visagie was the overall winner in the senior league and claimed the individual gold medal, followed by Damian Watson (4th), Theo Apteker (6th) and Mvelo Guma (10th). At the final relay race, held at St Anne’s Diocesan College on 12 May, our junior and senior teams both won their relays. Our Districts results were as follows: Mvelo Guma placed third in the U19 8km event, Theo Apteker placed second in the U17 6km event, Ruben Visagie placed first and Damian Watson third in the U16 6km event. Reily Elliot placed fourth. In the U14 4km event, Kyle Heyns placed first, with Victor

North second and Harry Witherspoon in third. A very pleasing and successful set of results from our athletes for 2022. Our boys were also regular runners in the Saturday Park Runs at Piggly Wiggly. Participating in Park Runs is a useful way to monitor our runners’ progress but I suspect the main attraction of taking part in these runs is usually the trip off campus and quick breakfast after our runs. Our cross-country boys have all been excellent ambassadors for Michaelhouse both on and off campus. They have proven themselves to be fine young athletes but were also incredibly polite and respectful of their peers and coaches at all the events. They can be proud of all they have accomplished this year.

GOLF

Master in Charge and First Team Coach: Mr Sean Rice Staff: Mr Nkanyiso Ngcobo Captain: James Asherson First Team: Luke Jankowitz, Josh Hoatson, Michael Thornton, Chris Angel, James Asherson, Oliver Bekker, Liam Bekker, Marc Du Plessis, Connor Coutts, Ben Heuer AWARDS Half-Colours: Liam Bekker PROVINCIAL REPRESENTATION KwaZulu-Natal Inland: Luke Jankowitz, Michael Thornton, Chris Angel 022 was an exciting year for the school’s golf pro gramme which was back in full swing after a long break in play brought on by the pandemic. There is no doubt that we emerged form the setback with a greater number of boys who were involved in the golf programme continuously during the year, either being heavily involved in golf matches and tours for school teams or as one of the large number of boys who played regular week day social rounds. Both Gowrie Farm Golf Club and Bosch Hoek Golf Club are always very accommodating, allowing our golfers play at discounted prices. Our school’s proximity to two incredible courses is a tremendous driver of the sport’s growing popularity at Michaelhouse. During the first quarter we enjoyed a full set of fixtures playing Hilton, Maritzburg College and St Charles in home and away fixtures. The first team lost home and away to Hilton, with a win at home against College before the away fixture was rained out. The boys then peaked with home and away victories over St Charles. The seconds notched up a win at home and loss away to Hilton, with the home win over College also preceding the 2

washed out away game before recording good home and away wins versus St Charles.

During the winter, a team of ten players narrowly lost to St John’s College in an 18 hole fixture.

The annual clash with Hilton College, the Douglas Cup, dished up a wonderful day of golf. We faced a very strong Hilton who were very much the favorites to win, with many predicting a win by a large margin. The Michaelhouse team put up a great fight with the result coming down to the very last group of golfers before Hilton came away with a very close 13–11 win. The Douglas Cup result was something of a confidence booster ahead of a team of six golfers (James Asherson, Luke Jankowitz, Josh Hoatson, Michael Thornton, Marc Du Plessis and Chris Angel) heading off on tour to Affies where they managed the rigors of playing in a four-day tournament with different formats each day. We started on the back foot, placing 11th out of 13 teams at close of play on day one; but the team fought back well managing to finish in sixth place in the final standings. A great fight back on some very difficult courses. Ben Heuer, Connor Coutts, Sam Heath, Connor Brown, James Reeve, Matt Carolan were our golfers who represent Michaelhouse on the U16 Grey PE tour. It could be said that this was a very young and inexperienced team with a couple of key players missing. With this in mind this team put in an immense effort and played some quality golf in challenging wet and windy conditions, eventually placing seventh out of 13 teams. The first team then placed ninth of 12 teams competing in the KwaZulu-Natal Champs, hosted at Royal Durban Golf Club before heading into the School Championships, an18 hole stroke play event contested at Bosch Hoek Golf Club. A playoff was required to determine a winner with Josh Hoatson managing to beat Luke Jankowitz on the third playoff hole.

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