“I am so excited about the Senior Tour. The chance to show my true colours means the world to me.” – Llewellyn is almost ready to follow his golf dream!
Pretoria, South Africa (27 February 2020) – Up until five months ago, 59-year-old Llewellyn Barnes was a homeless man, living on the streets of Pretoria while working as a Caddie, but this March, against all the odds, he will participate amongst professional players in the Senior Tour, a major golf tournament.
In January 2019, Llewellyn’s luck started to change. Upon hearing that he was homeless, the golf club where he was caddying offered him a storage container to stay in. Soon after Llewellyn made an unlikely friend by the name of Gareth Frost (45) who was running a ‘breakfast club’ on Saturday mornings for the homeless at Weirda bridge.
The pair connected through their mutual love of sport and in time formed a special and unbreakable bond. After breakfast one morning, Llewellyn took a leap of faith and told Gareth that he could play professional golf, and all he needed was a sponsor.
“I am used to requests from my homeless friends. They normally ask for a pair of shoes or shirts. When Llewellyn asked if I would like to sponsor him because he believed he could play professional golf, I didn’t think he was serious. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there could be something special about this guy and I thought God was speaking to me.” – says Gareth.
For senior amateur golfers, the fastest way to get playing status in any major tournament is to make it through Qualifying School. Gareth followed the advice of the Senior Tour directors, learned the requirements and gathered the funds for Llewellyn to enter Q-School in January 2020. With second-hand golf clubs and a prayer, they waited with anticipation for the first Q-school tournament.
Struggling to hide his excitement, Llewellyn phoned Gareth to tell him the news that he had qualified as a professional golfer with provisional exception to participate in the Senior Tour, a major professional tournament part of the Sunshine Golf Tour.
The crowdfunding campaign was launched on 8 February 2020 and raised over R130,000.00 in less than 20 days. The original goal was to raise R45,000.00. The amount will change Llewellyn’s entire life!
Aside from the life-changing crowdfund. Llewellyn recently got kitted out for his pro-golf debut. He was gifted a new set of golf clubs as well as the matching kit.
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