Ken Borland

EDENVALE, Gauteng – Some subtle swing changes have seen Cara Gorlei jack up her game and the former amateur star from Cape Town is looking forward to contending strongly at this week’s Jabra Ladies Classic that tees off at Glendower Golf Club on Wednesday.

This is the final Sunshine Ladies Tour event before the lucrative co-sanctioned tournaments – the Joburg Ladies Open at Modderfontein and the SA Women’s Open at Erinvale – and Gorlei is also honing her game before she returns to campaigning full-time on the Ladies European Tour.

In between her LET commitments, the 28-year-old has finished tied-fifth in the Dimension Data Ladies Pro-Am at Fancourt and last week she showed ominous form as she fired a 66 in the final round to finish third in the Absa Ladies Invitational at Serengeti.

It is that sense that the changes to her swing are now bedded in and the similarities between Serengeti and Glendower that have Gorlei approaching the R1 million Jabra Ladies Classic with confidence.

“My coach, Doug Wood, and I have been working on some new moves, basically just my positions in my swing and where I need to be, and that seems to be coming a bit more naturally to me now,” Gorlei, a former SA Women’s Amateur champion, said.

“So I’m looking forward to playing the Jabra Ladies Classic this week and hopefully I can keep that momentum from the last day at Serengeti. Glendower is the same sort of course in the sense that you have to hit the fairways. The rough at Serengeti was super-thick and it can be pretty long at Glendower as well. With all the rain around, it could also be wet, so the course will play a bit longer, but we experienced that at Serengeti, so that won’t be something new,” Gorlei said.

The last two tournaments have seen the very fabric of the Sunshine Ladies Tour change with first Gabrielle Venter and then Casandra Alexander breaking the stranglehold overseas golfers had on the winner’s podium. Now, as the series stands poised to be woven into the Ladies European Tour, the foreign golfers are bound to push hard again for the top spots.

But just as Gorlei, 10^th on the Investec Order of Merit, raised her game at the end of the Absa Ladies Invitational, she says she is ready to push even harder as the South African campaign heads to its conclusion.

“For the first couple of events, the top South African golfers had other LET events that took them overseas, but now we are back and really keen to perform at home. I have a real drive to get that win.

“Any competitive golf helps and it’s nice to get a lot of rounds in before we start travelling again. After Modderfontein and the SA Open, we go to Korea. Germany and France, and it’s a long stretch of tournaments. But it’s nice to be at home because you can go and put the work in with your coach and there are other aspects that are good too,” Gorlei said.

South Africans have won five of the eight Jabra Ladies Classic tournaments played at Glendower, but the patterns of overseas success this season is shown on the Investec Order of Merit, where Scotland’s Kylie Henry leads and German Helen Kreuzer and Tvesa Malik of India are all in the top-five.

Alexander (6^th) is the defending champion at Glendower, while Venter (2^nd) and Lee-Anne Pace (3^rd) should also be strong South African contenders.

KEMPTON PARK, Ekurhuleni – Buying confidence is a bit like trying to find a shortcut to experience, but the brilliant golf Casandra Alexander produced on Saturday to win the Absa Ladies Invitational at Serengeti Estates has ensured she will approach the next two months cock-a-hoop.

Playing what she described as “flawless golf”, Alexander fired a superb six-under-par 66 on Saturday to finish on 12-under-par overall and win the R1.2 million Absa Ladies Invitational by four strokes.

The 24-year-old had begun the final day tied for the lead with fellow South African Kiera Floyd, but Alexander went out in 34 before a brilliant back nine saw her collect an eagle and two birdies to romp to victory.

While Floyd struggled to a 77 on Saturday and finished 11 strokes behind, Alexander’s closest challenger was Spaniard Harang Lee, who also shot a 66 to finish on eight-under-par.

“It was definitely very close to flawless golf, I played unbelievably well and I am really happy,” Alexander said after her fifth Sunshine Ladies Tour title. “I had one or two drops early on which was maybe a bit of nerves, but I must have had 10 15-foot putts and I just couldn’t miss the first few.

“So I just tried to give myself birdie opportunities and I did manage to sink a few more. I played smart, but still aggressively and had a hot putter. Everything was solid, I hot my irons really well.”

Next week Alexander will defend her Jabra Ladies Classic title at Glendower, and then follows six consecutive weeks of European Tour action, including two co-sanctioned events in South Africa.

“I’m going to take a lot of confidence into Glendower, I’m hitting the ball well and that is a ball-striker’s course. And then it’s the two co-sanctioned events. I have a lot of events coming up, eight weeks in a row, and hopefully I can hit the ball even better and make more putts. I will carry this win with me,” Alexander said.

Her eagle on the 483m par-five 11^th came after a superb four-iron over the flag.

“I kept missing my drives slightly left, so I decided to hit a little cut off the tee and hit an unbelievable drive. I then hit a grip-down four-iron 185 metres into the wind, another little cut, and I hit it flush straight at the pin. I told it to sit down and it pitched five metres behind, leaving me with a 15-foot putt for eagle.

“That kind of separated myself, allowed the nerves to settle. I just played smart from there, I didn’t need to do anything crazy. I held things together well, it was all really tidy and I had two lip-outs in the last three holes,” Alexander said.

The Johannesburger backed up her eagle with birdies at the 12^th and 15tgh holes, and then her challengers were spent.

South Africa’s Cara Gorlei also shot a 66 to finish third on five-under-par, with compatriot Stacy Bregman fourth on four-under after a 69.

KEMPTON PARK, Ekurhuleni – Kiera Floyd and Casandra Alexander will go into the final round of the Absa Ladies Invitational sharing the lead after the pair of South Africans handled an exacting combination of a gusting wind and testing pin positions with aplomb at Serengeti Estates on Friday.

First-round leader Floyd shot a one-under-par 71 in the second round on Friday to go to six-under-par overall. The 19-year-old, playing on her home course, began her round on the back nine and started brilliantly with birdies on the par-five 11^th and par-three 12^th holes, where she chipped in. She added another birdie on the par-four second hole and led by four strokes at that stage.

But bogeys on the last two par-threes, the fifth and the ninth, dropped her back into a share of the lead as Alexander finished strong by birdieing the seventh and eighth holes.

Floyd, who double-bogeyed the fifth in the first round, once again found the bunker right in a spot without any sand and chipped over the green before getting up-and-down for a four. On her last hole, she three-putted from across the green.

The 24-year-old Alexander also started her second round on the 10^th and struggled to a one-over 37 at the turn. But she mounted a superb comeback on the front nine, picking up birdies on the first and second holes. She bogeyed the par-four sixth, but an excellent pair of birdies at seven and eight set her up for a final-round shootout with Floyd.

They are three shots ahead of another South African, the vastly-experienced Lee-Anne Pace, who collected three birdies in four holes around the turn and posted a one-under 71 on Friday.

Spain’s Harang Lee shot a 69 on Friday and leapt into fourth place on two-under-par and Namibia’s Bonita Bredenhann and South African Stacy Bregman are on one-under.

Floyd is chasing her maiden professional title and is hoping all the hard work she has put into her game and her mental approach pays off under the pressure of the final round and the expectation of home fans.

“I’ve put a lot of hard work into everything – my mental game, my range-work, my putting, my driving – and hopefully it pays off and I can hold all that together and come out on top,” Floyd said. The last time I was leading going into the final round was as an amateur and I’m looking forward to it, hopefully I can close it off.

“Conditions were a lot tougher today, the pins were tucked and the wind was up as well, and the greens were slower but very difficult to read. It helps that I know this course so well and which way the wind blows. It was swirling a lot today and we had crosswinds, downwinds and winds into you,” Floyd said.

“I had a slow start and struggled for birdies on the back nine, I had a lot of lip-outs and a couple of short-sides cost me drops,” Alexander said. “It was much harder today because there were some tricky pins and the wind and the pin-placements together made for quite a deadly combination.

“But it’s always a challenge I enjoy and something has definitely clicked this week after I got a new coach at the beginning of the year. When you do that, you go through changes and you have to be patient, even though you just want to score low straight away.

“But my game is getting better, it’s tighter and cleaner and my skew shots are not as skew. We’ll see what happens tomorrow,” Alexander, a four-time winner on the Sunshine Ladies Tour, said.

KEMPTON PARK, Ekurhuleni – Young Kiera Floyd’s game and mentality seemingly improves with every event as she fired a wonderful five-under-par 67 on Thursday to claim the lead after the first round of the Sunshine Ladies Tour’s Absa Ladies Invitational at Serengeti Estates.

Floyd has produced back-to-back top-10 finishes in her last two tournaments and also contended strongly in the Dimension Data Ladies Pro-Am at Fancourt before an 84 in the final round saw her slip down to a tie for 15^th place. The 19-year-old is also playing at her home course at Serengeti and there is certainly a lot of expectation that the prodigy can notch up her breakthrough professional win this week.

She successfully managed that external pressure, and also composed herself brilliantly after an unfortunate double-bogey at the 122m par-three fifth hole, not dropping another shot as she finished with seven birdies in all. Three of those came in her first four holes, before her mishap on the first par-three, and then a birdie on the par-five eighth was followed by three more on the back nine.

“I know there is a lot of expectation on me this week and I know there are a lot of people who want me to do well here, but I put all that to the side. I just played like I had not played the course before, I started like it was a fresh round on a new course this morning,” Floyd said.

“And I was very happy with the way I played. The double-bogey was a bit unlucky because I hit my tee shot into a bunker where there was no sand, and then played a bit of ping-pong over the green.

“But I came back nicely and I am really happy with my performance. Off the tee and my putting were the best parts of my game, I sank a few nice ones, which definitely helps. It was not easy out there, but I gave myself a lot more opportunities to make birdie. But it is just the first round and I need to keep going,” Floyd said.

The 2022 SA Women’s Strokeplay champion is one stroke ahead of fellow South African Casandra Alexander, who provided the sort of birdie-birdie finish to her round that had the spectators recording the action on their cellular phones.

The 24-year-old Alexander’s 68 also included a double-bogey, at the par-five eighth, but she immediately pulled a stroke back by making a birdie at the par-three ninth. She was level-par at the turn, but birdies at the 11^th and 15^th holes, and then her two threes to finish saw Alexander soar up the leaderboard.

In a momentous day in this season’s Sunshine Ladies Tour, every place in the top-five is filled by a South African, breaking the overseas dominance that has been apparent in the previous four events.

Perennial winner Lee-Anne Pace, Tara Griebenow and Stacy Bregman all shot 70s on Thursday to share third place. Another South African, Nicole Garcia, was leading on four-under through 10 holes, but she struggled to a 39 coming home, finishing her round on the front nine, to join a dozen other golfers on level-par 72.