1935 — Barbara Burke wins the women’s 100 yards crown at the South African championships to equal the 11.0 sec world record, making up for her previous attempt in Johannesburg two weeks earlier not being ratified.
1957 — Eric Sturgess, 36, returns to win a record 11th South African men’s singles title at Ellis Park, beating 21-year-old Gaetan Koenig 9-7 6-3 6-1 in the final. Sturgess, who hadn’t won in the past two years, lifted his first national crown in 1939.
1957 — Gert Potgieter breaks the world 440-yard hurdles record as he clocks 50.7 sec at the national championships in Queenstown. At the time Potgieter didn’t know he’d broken the mark, admitting afterwards he had no idea what the world record was. The previous mark for the distance was 51.3, held by Soviet athlete Yuriy Lituyev. But the world record over the official distance of 400 metres — or 437 yards and one foot — hurdles was 49.5, held by American Glenn Davis.
1958 — Gary Player wins in the US for the first time, coming from two strokes behind on the final round to take the Kentucky Derby Open in Louisville by three shots for a $2,800 prize.
1969 — Gary Player wins the Tournament of Champions at Rancho La Costa in Carlsbad by two strokes ahead of Lee Trevino. Player carded a four-under-par 284 to pocket the R21,500 winner’s cheque that pushed his total earnings in the US to north of $500,000, which ranked him sixth on the all-time money list topped by Arnold Palmer.
1990 — Evette de Klerk lowers her South African 100m record to 11.06 sec winning the national title in Germiston, though she was disappointed not to dip under 11 seconds. In the heats earlier in the day she had clocked a wind-assisted 10.98, which would have made her the second-fastest woman of all time behind Flo Griffith Joyner. Her heat was the only one to register illegal wind assistance.
1992 — Andrew Hudson, resuming on 135, scores 163 as South Africa are bowled out for 345 in the one-off Test against the West Indies in Bridgetown, for a first-innings lead of 83 runs.
2001 — Shaun Pollock finishes with 5/28 as South Africa bowl out the West Indies for 225 in the fifth and final Test in Kingston.
2025 — Garrick Higgo shoots a 14-under-par 274 to win the Corales Puntacana Championship in Dominican Republic by one stroke for his second victory on the PGA Tour.
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