Ken Borland

Trevor Fisher Junior on his way to seven-under

Late starters Simon Dyson and Trevor Fisher Junior claimed the first-round lead of the European Tour/Sunshine Tour co-sanctioned Tshwane Open at the Els Club Copperleaf on Thursday after a weather-curtailed opening round.

Dyson, teeing off at midday in match 29 of 39 to go off the first tee, staged a spectacular finish to his round as he collected four successive birdies to post a seven-under-par 65.

Fisher Junior teed off 50 minutes later and his round was suspended by a large storm that arrived at Copperleaf at 5.30pm, but the South African had already moved to seven-under-par through 16 holes by then.

Both Fisher Junior and Englishman Dyson played bogey-free rounds.

Earlier in the day, South Africans Jared Harvey and Erik van Rooyen, and Englishman Ross Fisher had claimed a share of the early lead with 66s, before being overtaken by Dyson and Fisher Junior.

South Africans Darren Fichardt, through 17 holes, and Danie van Tonder were also on six-under-par when play was called off for the day.

South African Open champion Morten Orum Madsen was in a six-man group on five-under-par, having eagled the par-four seventh hole and then picking up a second eagle on the par-five 15^th when he hit his approach shot stone-dead. The Dane was about to hit his second shot on the 18^th hole when play was suspended.

Dyson, a six-time European Tour winner, credited his fine round to his ability to recover from lost causes.

“It was a really nice finish, set up by three really good up-and-downs on the three previous holes. On 15 and 16 I also managed to get up-and-down from near the green for birdies and it’s my lowest round for a few years,” Dyson said.

The 36-year-old is also on the comeback trail after a European Tour disciplinary hearing ruled in December that he had been guilty of a deliberate but un-premeditated breach of the rules when he was disqualified from the BMW Masters in Shanghai in October for illegally tapping down a spike mark before he putted. He was fined £30,000 and given a two-month suspended ban, but he admitted there were times when he feared his professional golfing career was dead.

“Today’s round definitely shows I’m in a good state of mind. The controversy gave me my love of the game back, there was a chance it was going to be taken away from me. It made me knuckle down and really enjoy the game again, which isn’t bad in my 14^th year on tour,” Dyson said.

Young Van Rooyen, who turned pro last year after playing American college golf for the University of Minnesota, led the qualifiers into the tournament with a 66, and he repeated that score on Thursday, although he admitted the strain of pre-qualifying for every tournament was taking its toll.

“The qualifiers are tough, it’s like a sprint because you only have one round. And then the actual tournament is like a marathon straight afterwards. You’re so happy and pumped that you’ve qualified, but then you have to re-set so you don’t lose focus on the first day. I am getting tired, I won’t lie, it’s quite a lot of pressure and a lot of golf,” Van Rooyen said.

But winning a co-sanctioned event changes lives and Van Rooyen is in line to not have to worry about qualifying any more.

Ross Fisher, number 82 in the world and the second-highest ranked golfer in the field, is lurking dangerously just one shot back and, ominously, says he feels quite comfortable playing in South Africa.

“My game feels in good shape and I don’t know what it is, I just enjoy playing down here and I seem to play quite well. The long game still feels like it’s there and if I can hole a few more putts then I think there will be some really low scores from me,” the 2010 Ryder Cup player said.

George Coetzee, the highest-ranked golfer in the field in 53^rd place, is in a tie for 36^th after shooting a 70, while defending champion Dawie van der Walt is in trouble on five-over-par through 15 holes.

http://www.thenewage.co.za/119857-18-53-Dyson_and_Fisher_share_Tshwane_open_lead

The sheer length of the Els Club Copperleaf course will be the most obvious challenge for the 156 golfers teeing it up from Thursday in the European Tour/Sunshine Tour co-sanctioned Tshwane Open.

At 7281 metres, Copperleaf is the longest course in European Tour history, superseding the 7175 metres of the Ritz Carlton Golf Club which hosted the World Golf Championship Accenture Matchplay Championship from 2009-2011.

While the views of the professionals were varied, one man who is certainly not afraid of the distance is defending champion Dawie van der Walt.

“I think it’s fun to play a course like this. It’s long and everything, but it’s not tough. If it was tight, it would be a different story, but the fairways are pretty generous, so if you hit driver well, it’s not all that bad, you’ll hit a lot of mid-irons,” Van der Walt said on Wednesday.

Van der Walt claimed the first major tour title of his journeyman career in the inaugural edition of the Tshwane Open last year and has since won the Nelson Mandela Championship at Mount Edgecombe and the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit, but he is far from being the top-ranked player in the field.

That honour goes to George Coetzee, number 53 on the world rankings and the winner of the Joburg Open three weeks ago. The 27-year-old from Pretoria believes the tournament will be decided off the tees and on the greens.

“I really like this golf course, it suits me. It’s kind of a bomber’s track and then a putting contest, and those are the two parts of my game that I work on the most and I’m probably best at. It should be good fun,” Coetzee said.

Darren Fichardt, the 2013 Sunshine Tour Players’ Player of the Year, and Jaco van Zyl, the 13-time local tour winner, will also be amongst the favourites, but there are many overseas golfers eager for victory.

Perhaps the most dangerous of them will be Denmark’s Morten Orum Madsen.

At the end of last July, Madsen was ranked only 231^st in the world but he came to these shores in the summer and won the South African Open, leading to a steady rise up the rankings to his current 115^th spot.

“ This course suits my game very well, long with undulating greens. You need to be sharp with your approach shots and putt well and those long par-fives are good for me.

“It was great to get my first win in a tournament like the South African Open, you feel the fire and you want more. I’ve grown in confidence, I know the game is there and I know I can compete. If I play as well as I can, then I know I can win. That gives you a great sense of calmness and no fear,” Madsen said.

But the likes of Englishmen Ross Fisher, Chris Wood, Tommy Fleetwood, David Howell and Danny Willett, and Frenchman Romain Wattel, cannot be barred from contention either, with all of them ranked in the top 115 in the world.

As Van der Walt showed last year in cracking the Copperleaf code, finding the fairways off the tee and precise long-iron play will be key when the seventh and final co-sanctioned event of the summer gets underway.

“From all the rain over the last couple of weeks, the ball’s not rolling. It’s just pitching and stopping dead, so you’re playing very long holes. It’s going to be quite demanding on your long-iron play and also obviously on your chipping and putting,” Fichardt said.

With a heavy storm hitting Copperleaf on Wednesday afternoon, the challenge has become even tougher.

http://citizen.co.za/134590/van-der-walt-relishes-long-course/

Titans coach Rob Walter

“The responsibility is ours to make some hard calls on ourselves in terms of how we play the game,” Unlimited Titans coach Rob Walter said yesterday after his team had suffered another heavy Sunfoil Series defeat, losing by eight wickets to the Highveld Lions at the Wanderers.

“It’s not about pointing fingers, we are all – myself included – equally responsible for what I rate as our most disappointing performance of the season,” the coach said.

While Walter has understandably tried to share the blame around for the defeat, there is no doubt the batsmen were the most culpable as they produced an abject performance in scoring just 147 and 110 in the match.

And although the Wanderers pitch was a tricky one – there was always a bit of movement around and the bounce was uneven – it’s not as if they succumbed to a top-class bowling attack.

The chief destroyer for the Lions was medium-pacer Brett Pelser, who took seven for 44 in the match, far and away his best performance with the ball in franchise cricket.

“It wasn’t a great pitch, but there’s no ways it was a 147/110 wicket. If you watch the dismissals, most of them were due to poor shot selection and not related to the pitch. It was a case of the batsmen not really understanding what’s required to bat for a long period of time. It’s easy to convince yourself that the pitch is so bad, so you end up making a play and getting yourself out,” Walter said.

With the Titans now nearly 30 points off the pace of the log-leading Cape Cobras with just four rounds remaining, the time has probably come for some changes to the team.

Francois le Clus, Henry Davids and Mangaliso Mosehle are all averaging less than 20 with the bat, but the latter two have factors in their favour: Davids is the respected captain, while Mosehle is a fine wicketkeeper and, of course, a Black African. With Ethy Mbhalati out injured, a Titans team without a single Black African would be unacceptable to many.

“We’re certainly nearing the time when some changes are necessary to bring us some fresh ideas and fresh hunger,” Walter conceded.

Graeme van Buuren, who played a key role in the Titans’ amazing Momentum One-Day Cup comeback – it was so extraordinary a movie should be made of it – is one candidate for promotion, while there are other in-form batsmen in provincial cricket like opener Ernest Kemm, Tukkies star Theunis de Bruyn and wicketkeeper/batsman Heinrich Klaasen who are pushing hard for inclusion.

In contrast to the batsmen, the bowlers are in the coach’s good books at the moment. In the absence of Mbhalati, Marchant de Lange and Rowan Richards, they performed manfully in the Lions match.

“The bowling has improved tenfold. To bowl the Lions out of 212 when they were 106 for four was really good, and if we could have set them 180 in the second innings it would have been very interesting,” Walter said.

Off-spinner Dane Piedt picked up five wickets, including a hat-trick, as the Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras beat the Sunfoil Dolphins by 168 runs in their Sunfoil Series match at Boland Park in Paarl on Sunday to go to the top of the log.

The Dolphins were chasing 253 on the final day to win a thrilling match in which batting collapses after big partnerships were the order of the day.

But a wonderful spell of lively swing bowling by Travis Muller had them deep in trouble from the outset.

Muller swung the ball late and both ways to take five for 21 in nine overs, reducing the Dolphins to 60 for seven.

Piedt then wrapped up the tail, finishing the match with a hat-trick and superb figures of five for 16 in 4.4 overs.

Keshav Maharaj was bowled through the gate by a big-turning off-break for eight and then Mthokozisi Shezi and Craig Alexander both picked out fielders with aggressive strokes.

The Cobras are now nearly six points ahead of the second-placed Chevrolet Knights, but they began the day in disappointing fashion as they were bowled out for 280 in their second innings, having lost their last nine wickets for 87 runs.

Fast bowler Kyle Abbott was once again the destroyer, taking seven for 65 to give him 12 for 125 in the match.

Openers Divan van Wyk (18) and Imraan Khan (21), and captain Morne van Wyk (19 not out) were the only batsmen to reach double figures for the Dolphins as Muller and Piedt formed a formidable duo for the Cobras.

The Knights showed greater staying power than the Chevrolet Warriors as they beat them by 10 wickets on the fourth and final day of their match at Chevrolet Park in Bloemfontein.

The Warriors collapsed to 197 all out in their second innings on Sunday, leaving the Knights with a target of just 71 for victory, and openers Reeza Hendricks and Gihahn Cloete each scored 31 not out as they knocked off those runs in a breezy 18.3 overs.

The Warriors resumed on 25 for three and opener David White (89) and Ryan Bailey (39) fought hard as they added 101 for the fifth wicket before fast bowler Quinton Friend had Bailey caught behind.

Off-spinner Werner Coetsee (three for 47) and seamer Malusi Siboto (two for 27) then claimed the remaining five wickets for just 37 runs, killing off the Warriors’ hopes of setting the Knights a stiff target.

The hesitant, flatfooted Unlimited Titans batsmen succumbed meekly on Saturday as the bizhub Highveld Lions beat them by eight wickets in their match at the BidVest Wanderers Stadium.

The Lions batsmen kept their cool far better on a tricky Wanderers pitch, posting 212 in their first innings to claim a 65-run lead, and then bowling the Titans out for a meagre 110 in their second innings on Saturday.

That left the southern Gauteng team with a target of just 46 for victory and they knocked those runs off for the loss of two wickets in just 9.5 overs, captain Stephen Cook scoring 29 not out.

The gentle medium-pace of Brett Pelser was once again the undoing of the Titans as the all-rounder claimed three for 16 in 9.2 overs for superb match figures of seven for 44.

http://www.enca.com/sport-cricket/piedt-venomous-cobras-trounce-dolphins