Ken Borland

PORT EDWARD (KwaZulu-Natal) – The Vodacom Origins of Golf Series is at Wild Coast Sun Country Club this week, a perilously rugged course, and young contender Jonathan Broomhead says it is important for him to bring his best game for the challenge.

Fortunately Broomhead is in good touch of late, having ended in the top-10 last week, further up the east coast at the SunBet Challenge Sun Sibaya event, and the 23-year-old has had five other top-10 finishes this season, including being the runner-up at the Vodacom Origins of Golf Highland Gate tournament. He is currently seventh on the Order of Merit delivered by The Courier Guy, the same position he finished last season, speaking to the consistency the Durban Country Club player is producing.

“At the Wild Coast, you always hope that you’re going to be on the better side of the weather, because it can get really nasty around here. You can’t come here with expectations, you just have to try and play your game. When the wind blows, you can only focus more on what you can control, play according to your game-plan, make sure you stick to that,” Broomhead said.

“You have to make sure your golf is where it needs to be when you come here because it is a very tough course. You need to manage yourself and play the course as it is. You have to stay patient because you can get bad bounces every now and then; you can quickly be two or three over and scrambling. But if you make a putt or two, then you can ride that momentum.

“Last week was nice for me; I struggled a bit for the first two rounds but then had a good third round of 67. My game is heading in the right direction, it’s in a nice place, but there are still a few things to improve on. I just need to take every opportunity and try and keep going with that momentum,” Broomhead said.

Broomhead’s mature approach and comfort in the wind mark him out as one of the main threats in this R2 million event, which is the third leg of the series and the last before the final at Oubaai from November 14-17.

Veteran Jean Hugo was the runner-up in the SunBet Challenge event held here last season and pipped Broomhead to the Vodacom Origins of Golf title at Highland Gate, while the seasoned MJ Viljoen is fifth on the Order of Merit delivered by The Courier Guy.

The experienced Heinrich Bruiners, a member of the Sunshine Tour’s Papwa Sewgolum Class, is also in great form, having finished fifth in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Sishen event last month and fourth last week at Umhlali Country Club, while Pieter Moolman is the defending champion and has a couple of other recent top-five finishes at the Wild Coast Sun Country Club.

Danie van Tonder says it feels marvellous to be based back in South Africa again, but the challenge of making it on an overseas tour still appeals to him, and the 33-year-old is thinking about perhaps having a go at the Asian Tour and hopefully the LIV.

But what about a return to the DP World Tour and playing in Europe, the usual route to the top for South African golfers?

“Never again,” Van Tonder says emphatically.

The 2021 South African Open champion enjoyed a successful first full season on the DP World Tour that year, winning the Kenya Savannah Classic and finishing 75th on the Race to Dubai with more than €340 000 in prizemoney for the season. Having also made the cut in both the PGA and Open Championships of 2021 and won five Sunshine Tour tournaments in the previous eight months, it seemed his career was heading to great heights.

But 2022 and 2023 were years of struggle for Van Tonder as he finished 125^th and 117^th respectively on the order of merit, losing his DP World Tour card. For the self-taught golfer from Boksburg, the slog of campaigning in Europe was not for him.

That realisation was confirmed in August when he won the FNB Eswatini Challenge at Nkonyeni Lodge and Golf Estate, his first victory since his massive SA Open triumph at the Gary Player Country Club, Sun City, in December 2021. Van Tonder’s two-stroke victory in Eswatini came after he had taken a long break from competitive action.

“It was great to win again, my previous title was the SA Open and that was like three years ago. So there was a bit of a drought, but I went through some big changes, I was on the road for so long. It becomes a grind and you’re just not able to fix things in your game,” Van Tonder says.

“I had six weeks at home before playing in Eswatini and that really helped. I felt great coming into the tournament and I’m finally seeing the results of the work I’ve been able to put into my game.

“Playing week-after-week on the DP World Tour, you begin to get into bad habits and you try and fix them, but you don’t really have the time to make the changes you need to or to improve your game. I won’t be doing that again, I need to take breaks.”

The lucrative LIV Tour is obviously still the subject of much chat in Sunshine Tour locker rooms, especially since the Asian Tour sanctions the International Series, made up of 10 events which provides a route to Greg Norman’s breakaway league. South Africans such as Jbe’ Kruger, Jaco Ahlers, Neil Schietekat and Yurav Premlall have already tried their hand at these enhanced events that offer a minimum purse of $2 million.

Van Tonder is forthright in admitting that the LIV Tour, with its unique, non-traditional format, megastar signings and emphasis on fast-paced, more entertaining play, has caught his eye.

“I like to take driver and hit it long and far and straight. That’s why if I do play overseas, I would prefer to be on the Asian Tour because I love the thought of playing LIV. I think they would enjoy me on that tour, the way I play and my personality. I’m always aiming for a lot of birdies,” the winner of more than R17 million on the Sunshine Tour says.

Playing LIV, which only has 14 events a year, would also allow Van Tonder to take those breaks from golf that he needs to keep himself fresh. Plus each event is only played over three rounds and there’s a more relaxed dress code in which shorts are allowed.

The Serengeti Estate golfer is more of a traditionalist though when it comes to equipment and he says he is looking forward to the golf ball rollback that will come into force in 2028.

“I use the Titleist Pro V1 23X which everyone plays with. To use the older one would be a disadvantage because it goes shorter, but I will go back to it when the rollback happens because those are the distances we’ll be going back to. I’m looking forward to the change,” Van Tonder says.

“I still have my old Titleist 620 CB irons and I waited eight months for my old putter to be refurbished. It kinda works so I stick with it.”

Which is typical of a golfer who may be idiosyncratic, but he is his own man and his record speaks for itself.

SIDEBARS

Danie’s favourite courses

Carnoustie

Leopard Creek

Gary Player Country Club, Sun City

Glendower

Serengeti

(“Nkonyeni is very close to the top 5 because that was fun to play,” he says.)

What’s in Danie’s bag?

Titleist TSR3 Driver

Titleist TSi 3-Wood

Titleist GT 5-Wood

Titleist CB irons 3-9

Titleist Vokey SM10 wedge, gap wedge & lob wedge

Scotty Cameron Futura MB putter

How does Danie prepare before a round?

“Every day is different: sometimes I will do weights to get loose, on other days I will listen to music. I really enjoy David Crowder’s music, pump up music or just a whole mix of everything.”

The character of the Bulls was enough for them to weather the loss to injury of key players and the stern challenge of the tenacious Lions side as they registered an impressive 37-22 victory at Ellis Park in their United Rugby Championship derby on Saturday afternoon.

The joy of the bonus point victory was tempered, however, by the awful injury toll the Bulls suffered. Both the co-captains, Ruan Nortje and Elrigh Louw, both key Springbok forwards, face lengthy time on the sidelines.

Nortje limped off the field in the first five minutes with a leg problem, but it was the terrible injury to Louw that was most disturbing. A typically barn-storming run by the 25-year-old had ended with his leg trapped and then twisted. The agonising pain was obvious and he was already in surgery by 5pm.

The in-form Cameron Hanekom was also off the field at the time, for a head impact assessment. If the Bulls seemed shellshocked early in the second half as they tried to overturn a 10-11 deficit from the first half, then it was understandable.

But Hanekom returned and so did the Bulls’ mojo. The bench, boasting four Springboks in Akker van der Merwe, Nizaam Carr, Willie le Roux and Canan Moodie, played a key role in turning the tide and it was the visitors who certainly finished the game the stronger side. The Lions could only put up with the high-tempo battering for so long and the different financial positions of the two teams was clearly seen in the bench depth.

But the temptation to think everything was going against them and it was just not their day was there for the Bulls. But the champion character was what shone through in the end.

“I’m really proud of the team, after all the disruptions and then we went 10-14 down, some teams would have thought ‘well that’s it’. They could have capitulated,” coach Jake White said.

“But it says a lot about their character and they got the bonus point as well, you’ve got to play really well to do that at Ellis Park. We needed our bench to be really strong in terms of accuracy and the bottom line is we had four Springboks on our bench, which is a massive bonus.

“We needed that collective impact to come on and it was probably the best we have finished a game for the last two or three seasons. The Lions looked a bit tired and we could put pressure on them in a very high-tempo match. It was good to see that we had that vasbyt, that we could play at that tempo for the full 80 minutes, and it means a lot to the team to turn a potential loss into a bonus point win,” White said.

The Bulls began well and led 10-0 after 16 minutes. A tremendous steal by prop Gerhard Steenekamp was followed by flyhalf Boeta Chamberlain kicking across the field and into the Lions’ 22; busy wing Sergeal Petersen snaffled the ball out of the air and fed David Kriel on his inside for the opening try.

But the Lions enjoyed a strong second quarter, the Bulls’ efforts being deflated by some ill-discipline, soft mistakes and inopportune turnovers. Two penalties by flyhalf Sam Francis were followed by Henco van Wyk charging over for a try, having gathered a clever little kick by his midfield partner, Rynhardt Jonker.

A sombre mood settled over Ellis Park following the Louw injury, but then an excellent game of rugby emerged. The Lions were leading 17-13 after 53 minutes, but that was when the Bulls bench began to make their presence felt, along with the returning Hanekom and lock Cobus Wiese, who enjoyed an outstanding game.

The Bulls showed their composure and went back to basics, their scrum winning penalties, their forwards carrying powerfully through the middle and using the maul to good effect. Wiese and flank Marcell Coetzee both powered over for tries and it was replacement hooker Van der Merwe who claimed the bonus point as he rounded off a whirling dervish of a lineout drive.

“It’s disappointing because at one stage in the second half I thought we had turned the momentum,” Lions coach Cash van Rooyen said. “But under pressure we just started to do things differently. Some parts of the game we handled really well, others not. But you can’t buy experience and speeding up learning when we only had 205 caps in the whole team is difficult.

“Decision-making, communication and execution in the moment, these are things we work on every day. But inexperience makes a difference,” Van Rooyen said.

CENTURION – The solid plan and clinical execution of Kieran Vincent made sure that any dreams of a challenge to him would be still-born as the Zimbabwean cruised to a four-shot victory in the KitKat Cash & Carry Pro-Am at Irene Country Club on Sunday.

Vincent went into the final round tied for the lead on 15-under-par with James Mack, and there were 11 other golfers within five shots. But the 26-year-old gave them no chance as he fired a brilliant, bogey-free six-under-par 66 on Sunday to finish on 21-under and clinch a comfortable victory.

Vincent picked up his first birdie at the par-four sixth hole and the turn was fertile territory for him as he then reeled off a hat-trick of birdies from the ninth to 11th holes. Vincent sank a superb 40ft putt for birdie on the par-five 10^th, and then hit an equally excellent approach to a foot on the par-four 11^th to pick up another shot.

The likes of Malcolm Mitchell and Jacques Blaauw did appear briefly in his rearview mirror, but Vincent settled the deal with birdies on the last two holes.

“It hasn’t quite sunk in yet, but I’m here on an invite so I’m super-grateful to KitKat Cash & Carry for this opportunity,” Vincent said. “I’m very excited because we did a lot of good things today and a lot of hard work has gone into making this first professional win with my caddie Alec a reality. To have my mother and sister in the crowd was also so special.

“Any time you win, it’s a huge boost, wherever it is. I have a long season ahead and there’s still a lot of work to do.”

Vincent is hoping part of that long season will be the Olympic Games tournament in Paris, and his golf in the first two events of the new Sunshine Tour season – he finished tied-fourth in the FBC Zim Open – certainly fits the bill in terms of climbing the world rankings. He was number 439 in the world coming to Irene Country Club, but he is the leading Zimbabwean in the rankings.

“I’m not sure if I’m 100% there yet, but playing good golf will take care of that itself,” Vincent said.

Vincent was stalked by Mitchell on the front nine, with the latter reaching the turn in four-under to be just a stroke behind at one stage. But a double-bogey on the par-three 13^th and another dropped shot on the 14^th were crucial lapses by Mitchell.

Blaauw also legged it up the leaderboard with a round of 67 that included just one bogey, finishing in third place on 16-under-par.

Mack struggled to a 73 on Sunday and finished on 14-under-par, in a tie for sixth.