The night before JJ Senekal won his first Sunshine Tour title back in October 2013, he received a very special phone call.
“You’re up there for a reason,” the voice said. “Don’t stand back for anyone. You’ve got the game. You’ve got everything. Just go for it.”
It was his father at the other end of the line, and Senekal went on to defeat Titch Moore on the second play-off hole to win the Vodacom Origins of Golf Final at St Francis Links. He’d also beaten the likes of Jean Hugo and Jake Roos, both of whom had won on the Sunshine Tour in 2013.
Things looked rosy for Senekal as he finished that year in 50th spot on the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit. Although he didn’t win the following year, solid finishes in the Africa Open, the Telkom Business PGA Championship and the South African Open saw him to his best ever year in terms of cash won.
And then? 2015 and 2016… meh!
“2016 was a year of lessons learnt,” says Senekal. “I knew that I had to change some things in my career and I did it. I changed a couple clubs in my bag and went back to my old irons that had worked the year before. When I had that sorted the rest was easier to sort out. I didn’t change my swing a whole lot but I did try to make it stronger and more repeatable. There is never a quick fix in golf and I knew that when I started this game. So it all comes with hard work and time.”
Senekal, like so many really talented players before him, had reached a point where it looked as if he might sink without trace in the merciless world of professional golf. But he is made of pretty stern stuff.
“I never doubt myself in anything I do,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what game it is in life. For me it’s called a learning curve for a reason. I have an amazing team of supporters behind me and to single them all out will take up this whole interview. The most important people are my family – my mom Alida, dad Koos, sister Marizahn. and my girlfriend Annemari Golden. It’s people you spend every day with at home when you are down and they pick you up very quickly.”
That kind of self-confidence is critical in a game like golf, where a slump can feel interminable. But self-confidence can only carry you so far in golf. Knowing your game is also critical, and knowing where to tinker, and how to tinker will go a long way in helping end a slump.
“I would say my short game is the strongest,” says Senekal “I have always been a pretty good putter, even if I say so myself.” He may say so: He birdied the final two holes on his way to his maiden Sunshine Tour victory, including a 25-foot putt for his birdie on the last for force the play-off.
“But I looked at my stats and I had to work on hitting more fairways and greens, and I had to work really hard to get that part of my game better. I changed my driver and it was small things I had to change to become better. I’m still not the best off the tee but I’m in better positions to attack more flags.”
Things started to come right in the 2017-18 season on the Sunshine Tour, as he produced four top-10s, and rounded things off nicely with top-20s in the Tshwane Open and the Tour Championship. That saw him inside the top 30 of the Order of Merit for the second time in his seven-year career on tour – exactly the kind of springboard that a player with his self-belief and introspective abilities needed.
Everything paid off in spades as he pulled off his second Sunshine Tour win, as he prevailed in a four-way play-off in the Zanaco Masters in Lusaka, Zambia in April. He saw off Jaco Ahlers, Andre de Decker and Alex Haindl.
“Having a break like that in between wins is not easy but if you put yourself in contention enough times you will cross that line again and that’s what I kept telling myself,” says Senekal.
“I finished seventh in Lusaka in 2017 and that made me want to come back and try and improve on that,” he adds. “It’s a course that is tight and hard so it’s more a mental week than a ball-striking week and I prepared myself to be mentally stronger than anyone that week and it worked.
“A play-off is always nerve-shredding but getting into a four-man playoff made it very hard. When it was just Jaco and me, it became match play for me and that’s all you need to do – beat the other guy, doesn’t matter if it’s an eagle or a double bogey!”
For Senekal, that play-off signified more than a return to the winner’s circle. It gave him a glimpse of how he gets things right in the way he approaches life on tour, too. “Our careers are very lonely,” he says. “It’s only you and your caddie out there trying to win tournaments, so when you get off the course you need someone to have dinner with and chat.
“Rhys West and Mike Palmer are the boys I travel with and we are great friends. Rhys and I have been hosting each other since we were junior golfers, so it’s cool that we are now playing on tour together. It’s almost like having team mates but the only thing is that these team mates are trying to beat you the next day so you need to be able to switch into game mode once you wake up. But we are all good mates and support each other every day to be the best.”
The best for Senekal is pretty simple. “My golfing ambition is to become a top-50 golfer in the world and to play amongst the world’s best week-in and week-out. That’s what we all work for, to become a ‘world famous golfer’.
“My advice to younger golfers? Turn pro as soon as possible – after your education, of course. What you can learn on tour during your first couple of years is worth millions of dollars. Here anyone can win any week and that’s when you realise how good these guys are and how good you need to become.”
Senekal’s father knew that about his son when he made that phone call in 2013.
