Vincent Vesele Tshabalala (born 16 March 1943) is a South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n professional golf

Golf

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

er.

Tshabalala was born in Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

 and worked as a mechanic

Auto mechanic

An auto mechanic is a mechanic with a variety of car makes or either in a specific area or in a specific make of car. In repairing cars, their main role is to diagnose the problem accurately and quickly...

 before his golf career took over. As he was designated as "Coloured" under the Apartheid racial classification scheme he was not able to play on the Southern African Tour in his prime, but with assistance from South Africa's leading white golfer Gary Player

Gary Player

Gary Player DMS; OIG is a South African professional golfer. With his nine major championship victories, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of golf. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974. Player has won 165 tournaments on six continents over six...

 he gained entry to tournaments around the world, and in 1976 he won the European Tour's French Open. Later that year he was selected in South Africa's World Cup team, but refused to take part. Soon afterwards his career was curtailed by injury. He plays his full shots crosshanded, a virtually unique method for a professional player.

Tshabalala made a comeback in the over-50 ranks, finishing in the top twenty on the European Seniors Tour

European Seniors Tour

The European Seniors Tour is a professional tour for male golfers aged 50 and over run by the PGA European Tour.The Tour was founded in 1992. In 2008 it had a total prize fund of €7,729,284, so it is much further behind the U.S.-based Champions Tour in relative prize money than the main European...

 Order of Merit four times in the 1990s, though without winning any tournaments. He also played on the Southern Africa Tour after the racial restrictions were abolished in the early 1990s, but by then he was almost fifty and he didn't win any official money events. However he won an unofficial money pairs event called the Nelson Mandela Invitational

Nelson Mandela Invitational

The Nelson Mandela Invitational was a charity golf tournament conceptualised by Marc Player, CEO of Black Knight International, which took place annually in South Africa from 2000 until 2006. It was named in honor of former South African President Nelson Mandela, and hosted by South Africa's most...

 in both 2004 and 2005, playing with Ernie Els

Ernie Els

Theodore Ernest "Ernie" Els is a South African professional golfer, who has been one of the top professional players in the world since the mid-1990s. A former World No. 1, he is known as "The Big Easy" due to his imposing physical stature along with his fluid, seemingly effortless golf swing...

 in the former year and with Tim Clark in the latter year.

Southern Africa Tour wins (2)

• 2004 Nelson Mandela Invitational
  Nelson Mandela Invitational
  The Nelson Mandela Invitational was a charity golf tournament conceptualised by Marc Player, CEO of Black Knight International, which took place annually in South Africa from 2000 until 2006. It was named in honor of former South African President Nelson Mandela, and hosted by South Africa's most...
  
   (with Ernie Els
  Ernie Els
  Theodore Ernest "Ernie" Els is a South African professional golfer, who has been one of the top professional players in the world since the mid-1990s. A former World No. 1, he is known as "The Big Easy" due to his imposing physical stature along with his fluid, seemingly effortless golf swing...
  
  , non-Order of Merit event)
• 2005 Nelson Mandela Invitational
  Nelson Mandela Invitational
  The Nelson Mandela Invitational was a charity golf tournament conceptualised by Marc Player, CEO of Black Knight International, which took place annually in South Africa from 2000 until 2006. It was named in honor of former South African President Nelson Mandela, and hosted by South Africa's most...
  
   (with Tim Clark, non-Order of Merit event)

Results in major championships

Tournament	1976	1977
The Masters	DNP	DNP
U.S. Open U.S. Open (golf) The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Open, is the annual open golf tournament of the United States. It is the second of the four major championships in golf, and is on the official schedule of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour...	DNP	DNP
The Open Championship The Open Championship The Open Championship, or simply The Open , is the oldest of the four major championships in professional golf. It is the only "major" held outside the USA and is administered by The R&A, which is the governing body of golf outside the USA and Mexico...	CUT	T56
PGA Championship PGA Championship The PGA Championship is an annual golf tournament conducted by the PGA of America as part of the PGA Tour. It is one of the four major championships in men's professional golf, and is the golf season's final major, usually played in mid-August, customarily four weeks after The Open Championship...	DNP	DNP

DNP = Did not play

CUT = missed the half-way cut

"T" indicates a tie for a place

Yellow background for top-10

External links