Blast from the past: Player joins golfing greats by completing Grand Slam at US Open

1965 — Gary Player wins his one and only US Open title, which earns him a career Grand Slam after his victories at the 1959 Open, 1961 Masters and 1962 PGA Championship. But it was a nail-biting affair at Bellerive Country Club in Missouri, which was forced into a play-off on the fifth day. A non-American was destined to win the US Open for the first time since 1920 after Player, the second- and third-round leader, ended tied for the lead on two-over-par 282 alongside Australian Ken Nagle, the first-round leader. With three holes to play the South African had been leading by three shots, but then he carded a double bogey on the par-three 16th, while Nagle birdied the par-five 17th to draw level. Both men missed birdie putts on the 18th. Player won the 18-hole play-off convincingly, taking a one-stroke lead on the first hole, extending it to three after five, and then to five by the eighth. He finished on one over par to win by three shots. Player was the first non-American and only the fourth golfer to achieve a career Grand Slam, after Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan. Jack Nicklaus would achieve the first of his three career Grand Slams the following year. Tiger Woods would complete the first of his three career Grand Slams in 2000. The closest Player came to winning this event a second time was 1979, when he finished tied for second spot two shots off the pace.

1975 — The Springboks beat France 38-25 in a nine-try fest in Bloemfontein to win the first of a two-match home series. Centres Peter Whipp and Johan Oosthuizen and winger Chis Pope are among SA’s five try-scorers. The French had a storming second half, scoring all four of their tries in that stanza to effectively win the period 22-17.

1997 — The British and Irish Lions, back in the country after an absence of 17 years, beat the Springboks 25-16 in the first Test at Newlands. The teams scored two tries apiece — Russell Bennett and Os du Randt going over for the hosts — but the difference was the lethal boot of fullback Neil Jenkins, who kicked five penalties.

1997 — US-based Gary Ballard’s bid for the vacant IBF super-middleweight title against American Charles Brewer ends in a fifth-round failure in Tampa, Florida.

1998 — The Proteas beat England by 10 wickets in the second Test at Lord’s to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series. The visitors scored 360 up front, spearheaded by Jonty Rhodes’s 117 and Hansie Cronje’s 81. SA bowled out England for 110 and then 264 before Gary Kirsten and Daryll Cullinan knocked off the 15 runs required to win in just seven balls.

2008 — Hooker Bismarck du Plessis scores two tries as the Springboks beat Italy 26-0 in a one-off Test in Cape Town.

2011 — Pietie Coetzee becomes the most prolific goalscorer in international hockey when she nets four times in SA’s 5-5 draw in a Champions Challenge match against the US in Dublin. Her second goal of the match, a penalty corner drag-flick, saw her equal Russian Natella Krasnikova’s world record of 220 goals, and the second, another penalty corner, gave her the mark outright. Her fourth, with SA trailing 4-5 with three minutes to go, earned her team the draw. The SA team celebrated the 32-year-old’s achievement by wearing T-shirts reading: “I played with Pietie when she broke the world record.”

2014 — The Springboks are awarded two penalty tries, including one with three minutes remaining in the game, to beat Wales 31-30 in Nelspruit to clinch the two-match series 2-0. Flyhalf Morne Steyn converted that and SA’s three other tries.

2017 — AB de Villiers (65 not out) and Farhaan Behardien (64 not out) steer SA to 142/3 in the first of three T20s against England in Southampton, but it’s not enough as the home side win by nine wickets with 33 balls remaining.