1951 — Geoff Chubb takes five wickets to help South Africa bowl out England for 311 in the second Test at Lord’s.
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’s a nail-biting affair at Bellerive Country Club in Missouri, which is 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, 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. 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 South Africa’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. Jacques Kallis took 4/24 as the visitors bowled out the home side for 264 in their follow-on innings, leaving South Africa a target of 15 runs, which they achieved off seven deliveries.
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 scores an unbeaten 65 and Farhaan Behardien 64 not out to steer SA to 142/3 in the first T20 against England in Southampton, but it’s not enough as the home side win by nine wickets with 33 balls remaining.
2021 — Spinner Keshav Maharaj takes 5/36 as South Africa bowl out the West Indies for 165 to win the final second Test in Gros Islet by 158 runs and with it the series 2-0.
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