Dawie van der Walt said the nightmares have finally stopped. One or two nights a month with regularity, he had been dreaming his house was flooding, and the dreams seemed so real.
“One hundred percent,” van der Walt said Friday. “You’re standing and you see water coming into your house and there’s absolutely nothing you can do. Like my dad said, ‘You can fight fire with water; you can fight water with nothing.’ ”
The nightmares refreshed a harrowing, all-too-true memory for van der Walt, 38, a Korn Ferry Tour golfer playing this week in the Club Car Championship at The Landings Club.
In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey devastated the Greater Houston area including the neighboring town of Kingwood, Texas, where Dawie (pronounced DAH-vee) resides with his wife Bobbie Jo, a kindergarten teacher, and their two daughters (now 9 and 6).
Their home was flooding, so they tried to evacuate their street by kayak, but the current was too powerful and they escaped by boat.
Except van der Walt needed to go back to his house to retrieve diapers for his infant daughter. They had stored them upstairs, and stores were closed. The South African, a big guy at 6-foot-5 and a former rugby player, planned to float out by mattress.
The water was receding but the current, however, was too strong, and he eventually got stuck in harm’s way.
“I couldn’t move,” he said. “I was hanging onto a flagpole. I was hanging on like this with all the might I had and (a police boat) pulled me out of this current. It’s crazy.”
He feels extremely fortunate that the disaster did not result in tragedy for the van der Walt family. They were able to keep and repair their home. He is thankful to the federal agencies and others for disaster relief funds.
Talk about nightmares: He wishes he had flood insurance but said the house was not in a flood zone and that coverage was not available. He said his homeowners insurance policy covered wind-driven damage but that did not apply.
He is not using this life-and-death experience as a salve whenever he has a bad day at the office.
“Really, it adds pressure,” van der Walt said. “I got a $200,000 bill overnight. At least $200,000, maybe more. I’m still paying that off. It doesn’t make it easier out here. It’s just more pressure.”
He has all the perspective he needs since turning pro in 2007. The former All-America golfer at Lamar University worked his way from mini-tours through the Web.com tour (now Korn Ferry Tour) and onto the PGA Tour for one full, rough season in 2016 (11 cuts made in 25 events). He’s back to grinding on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he won twice in 2015.
“When you have no other option, that’s what you’ve got to do,” said van der Walt, who also won twice on the European Tour in 2013 before the current dry spell. “When you don’t have a Plan B, this is your only option, you grind it out and just keep pushing. At some point, things will turn around.
“Unfortunately you can’t force it. There’s nothing you can do. You can practice and do all the right things, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. You’ve got to be patient.”
Perhaps his patience will pay off as soon as this weekend. After opening with a 70, van der Walt moved up 38 spots to fifth place with a 7-under-par 65 on Friday at the Deer Creek Course.
He said he loves the course, which has “no easy holes.” Still, he carded an eagle at the par-5 No. 3; and birdies at Nos. 5, 7, 8, 13, 14 and 15; with a lone bogey at No. 11.
The 65 didn’t feel like it, he said. He does feel he’s playing well; now he’s got to figure out how to play better on the weekends, which has been an issue for him.
“I shoot even par on the weekend and I get lapped,” van der Walt said. “I’ve got to figure out how to keep doing this, how to keep the pedal down.”
So far, van der Walt said Friday, nothing has worked.
“I feel like I need about a 14-shot lead going into the weekend if I want to pull it off,” he said.
Nathan Dominitz is the Sports Content Editor of the Savannah Morning News and savannahnow.com. Email him at ndominiz@savannahnow.com. Twitter: @NathanDominitz
