Chatting to Golfer Nicola Eaton Gutzeit ahead of the Cell C SA Women's Open

Twins and tee-offs

Nicola Eaton Gutzeit recently laid down her clubs and stepped off the tee to tie the knot at a magical Ballito wedding in May of this year. The wedding bells soon melded into beach shells as she was whisked off on a romantic honeymoon in Zanzibar. But now with the Cell C SA Women’s Open looming, it’s time to change the garters for golf clubs and get back into the swing of things.

Big competitions are always an emotional rollercoaster and Nicola admits to getting both wildly nervous and terribly excited when a competition is coming up. “We don’t have a lot of tournaments here so when they come around you want to make sure you take your chances”. And Nicola is pulling out all the stops with her training regime. Being a Port Shepstone local, she’s fortunate to live close by to San Lameer, the course where the SA Open will be taking place from 16-19 October. She’s utilised the beneficial location of her abode to train on the course and get to know the conditions. Nicola cautions that the strong coastal winds are always a factor when playing down south, “Depending on what the wind’s doing the course can play very differently”. So I’m sure everyone will be keeping an eye out not only for the tail end of the whale watching season but also for what the weather reports predict.

I gentleman never asks a lady her handicap so I ask instead what she thinks about the SA Open. The SA Open is a firm favourite she says, “It’s on our local territory and we have lots of support!” This will be Nicola’s third SA Open as a professional at the tender age of 29. Not only is it a high profile tournament on the women’s circuit but she also enjoys the way the players are looked after, “Because it’s co-sanctioned with the Ladies European Tour it’s a really big deal and you really do get treated like you’re VIP”.

“We definitely have golfing genes in our family”, says Nicola. Both her mom and dad played golf at a high level and her mom was still playing professionally when Nicola and her twin sister Melissa were born. After both being selected for the Ernie Els Foundation, which was immensely beneficial for both their golf game and education, it so happened that one university was looking to award two girls with full scholarships and so Nicola and Melissa both went to Louisiana State University in 2003.

“The ambition to become pro was always there but it wasn’t in the forefront of my mind, it was first going to university”, says Nicola, but soon her skills grew to challenge the best and she found herself playing on then Futures Tour, now called the Symetra Tour, which is second only to the LPGA. She played for about two years before the lack of sponsorship forced her to return to SA in 2010.

Nicola coaches at the Hillbillion driving range, close to Shelly Beach as well as at her home course, the Port Shepstone Country Club. She invests most of her time in teaching but still plays the local circuit such as the SA Open and the Sunshine Ladies Tour. Nicola is an outdoor enthusiast and adventure-nut. She endeavours to remain open to anything and says, “Live life to the fullest, experience everything you can that comes into your life.” She’s also hard at work setting up a golf development programme for kids. She says, “To give back to the game through the kids will be very rewarding and I hope to watch them grow and see them do well”.

Having gotten to know each other more, I now feel confident to ask Nikki a possibly contentious question about the sibling rivalry that must exist between golf pro twins! Nikki just laughs and says that they are both a great source of competition and support for one another and they can’t wait to “both be coming down the 18^th in the final group and battling it out for that trophy!”

We wish Nicola and Melissa luck with the upcoming competition and one day achieving her ultimate dream of playing the British and US Open. Goodluck girls!

 Words by Adam Dore and images by Justin Klusener