Sunday, 11th March 2007 at 7:13 pm

Francois Pienaar? Never heard of him

He’s one of South Africa’s most instantly recogniseable figures after a rather memorable afternoon’s rugby in 1995 - but not everyone knows exactly who Francois Pienaar is. At Clovelly on Friday, Raymond Ackerman had his annual birthday party, a fundraising golf day that included the launch of the Clovelly Golf Foundation, aimed at giving kids from the area the chance to make a life through the game of golf.

And Pienaar was amongst the celebrity field taking part (two days before taking on the Cape Argus Pick ‘n Pay Cycle Tour on a tandem with Lucas Radebe), playing alongside Pick ‘n Pay’s Jonathan Ackerman on clear day at Clovelly. The eighth hole was being manned by a couple of curvaceous Jack Daniels promotional girls; in conversation with them and the rest of his fourball, Pienaar recalled a recent American skiing holiday where South Africans were manning a lot of the skiing operation.

“They all said ‘goeiemore’ when I arrived,” the World Cup-winning captain explained; the response from one of the two Jack Daniels girls? “How did they know you were South African…”. Brilliant.