Ken Borland

It’s been an eventful and testing year for Australian golfer Marc Leishman, but he had the energy to end it on a high and claim the biggest paycheque of his career in winning the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City by six strokes on Sunday.

With home favourite Jaco van Zyl tumbling down the leaderboard – despite eagling the second he slumped to a six-over-par 78 – Leishman’s only challenger in the final round was world number seven Henrik Stenson, who had overcome severe flu to lead the first two rounds.

But after some early struggles, Leishman’s precise iron play took the wind out of Stenson’s sails, with the 2008 champion only managing to post a level-par 72 in stifling heat as the eventual winner produced some superb golf with six birdies in the last 12 holes.

Leishman began the year ranked 46^th in the world after top-10 finishes in the Open and two World Golf Championships events in 2014, but his early season was severely disrupted by his wife Audrey suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome, going into toxic shock and only being given a 5% chance of survival.

Happily she made it through and Leishman played in the Open Championship in July and lost out in the playoff with winner Zach Johnson and South African Louis Oosthuizen.

“I’ve been pretty happy to get this year over with, obviously with Audrey being very sick and I lost an uncle who was very close to me. The Open was very good but disappointing, so this win tops off the year for me. It’s pretty great, an awesome feeling and I’m very happy. It’s the biggest paycheque I’ve ever won so I’ll have to hang it on the wall of our new house,” a delighted Leishman said after he became just the second Australian to win the Nedbank Golf Challenge after Robert Allenby, who beat Stenson in a playoff in 2009.

With the demise of Van Zyl confirmed on the ninth, where he three-putted for bogey to add to the double-bogey he had on the sixth and another dropped shot on eight, the recipient of the $1.25 million winner’s cheque was obviously going to be either Leishman or Stenson.

But Leishman spun a sand-wedge back to within a few inches of the hole for birdie on the par-four 13^th and the final nail in the coffin was hammered in when he birdied the 15^th from 15 feet and Stenson made bogey after a wayward drive meant he had to chip out of thick bush.

Another birdie on the par-three 16^th and two pars coming in meant Leishman completed the round of the day with his 67.

“Henrik is an awesome player who I knew could come back with five birdies in nine holes and two or three up is not that many over nine holes on this course. I knew that trouble waited on every shot and you don’t need to hit that bad a shot to get bogey here. It was probably only after the putt on 16 that I knew I would have to do something really dumb to lose it, but fortunately I was able to be more conservative,” Leishman said.

It’s been an eventful week for Kevin Pietersen, even by his standards.

South Africa’s most famous cricketing export was back in his homeland, playing in a cricket tournament that raised plenty of money for charities, playing with children, helping to dart rhino with the Castle Lager Boucher Legacy programme, signing with the Dolphins and managing to get himself c Borland b Symcox.

The latter misfortune happened during the Momentum Cricket Sixes, the wonderful annual event that sees corporates donating to charity to share the field with greats of the game like Pietersen, Mark Boucher, Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Damien Martyn and Dale Steyn.

Kallis and Pat Symcox were the legends bought by the Castle Lager Boucher Legacy team for which I was privileged to play and so it was that Symcox was bowling to Pietersen, who had already hit me for a majestic straight six and a cheeky reverse-paddle four. Pietersen launched the off-spinner towards cow-corner, where Kallis ran round from wide long-on to catch the ball but then immediately tossed it to me running from deep midwicket! Whether it was out of sympathy or not, Kallis wouldn’t say, but I had dropped a catch off Symcox the previous delivery so the pressure was on. Fortunately it was so unexpected I didn’t have time to panic and I held the catch, the scorers later confirming that it had been given to me.

The wrath of Symcox, who is still famously competitive and batted beautifully himself, averted.

The Momentum Cricket Sixes are the brainchild of Smith, Boucher and Justin Kemp and lives up to its billing as the social cricket event of the year as a ton of sporting legends compete in the most convivial atmosphere. There were even rugby stars taking part as John Smit entered his Barney’s Army charitable side featuring Bob Skinstad, Butch James and Percy Montgomery, and rock stars Ard Matthews and Ross Learmonth from Prime Circle played for the Castle Lager Boucher Legacy team as well.

Apart from Boucher’s rhino charity, which is doing crucial anti-poaching work in creating a DNA database of all rhino in the country, the other main beneficiary of the event is the title sponsor’s Momentum2Excellence bursary initiative and one of their talented cricketers, Jared, played in Pietersen’s team, batted like a star and gave a delightful speech at the auction dinner.

If you believe the English, then Pietersen’s ego has the effect of a scud missile on a changeroom but there was no evidence of that as he relaxed and socialised amongst many former and current Proteas, with whom he has established close friendships. On his own accord, while he could have been chilling in the VIP bar, he spent an hour playing cricket with the little kids gathered around the field, an amazing gesture that will live long in the memory of those future cricketers.

Pietersen was not the most impressive bowler on show, however. That honour must go to Paul Harris.

The left-armer proved that, if spinners are the most valuable bowlers in 20-over cricket, then that must be four times as true in the five-over game. He attracted the highest price at auction – more than Pietersen or current Proteas like Steyn, David Miller and David Wiese – and he once again gave the ball plenty of air and enjoyed great success.

I didn’t think it was possible for Harro to bowl slower than he did last year, but he somehow found a way, as he always does!