Ken Borland

HARARE, Zimbabwe – An excellent day with the putter saw Albert Venter to a superb final-round 66 and a playoff for the FBC Zimbabwe Open at Royal Harare Golf Club, with the 26-year-old then sinking a 16-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole to claim his maiden Sunshine Tour title on Sunday.

Venter had to hold off Stefan Wears-Taylor, who also shot 66 in the final round, and Louis Albertse (67) in the playoff after the trio all finished the R2 million tournament on 10-under-par.

They all parred the 18^th in the first playoff hole, but on their next attempt, Venter spun a sand-wedge from the fairway back to 16 feet from the pin and then nailed the birdie putt, with Albertse and Wears-Taylor unable to make their shorter putts.

Venter’s success with the putter was unexpected because the Silver Lakes golfer struggled with the short stick in the third round.

“I knew I needed to just keep grinding today, follow my processes, and my goal was to just get in contention on the back nine,” Venter, who began the final round five shots off the lead, said.

“I was playing with the American, Dan Erickson, and he was off to a flyer – six-under after seven holes. So he was the guy to catch and I just tried to stay in touching distance of him.

“Then I caught fire on the back nine and I just kept following my processes, just keeping the ball in play, hit the greens and make the putts.

“Yesterday [Saturday] was a really bad putting day – 31 putts – so last night I spent an hour or two on the green and I found something. The putter paid off today with the prize,” Venter said.

Venter finished runner-up (his best finish on tour) in last September’s Sunshine Tour Invitational at Centurion Country Club, but two missed cuts in October probably cost him a top-50 finish in the final 2021/22 order of merit.

His victory on Sunday means none of that matters now and he said his big breakthrough felt surreal.

“At the moment, it’s still kind of surreal. To get to this professional level is hard enough, but then to win is a whole another level.

“It’s about belief and I can only thank my supporters, my coaching staff and family, who felt I was good enough. I would not be in this position without them,” Venter said.

Erickson was still in the lead when he birdied the par-three 15^th, which Venter bogeyed, but the American was knocked out of contention by a bogey-bogey finish.

Wears-Taylor birdied 16 and 17 to claim the outright lead, but then bogeyed the last to force him into a playoff, with Albertse staying alive as he birdied 18.

Venter’s round was built around three successive birdies from the seventh hole, and he then burnt up the back nine with a run of four straight birdies from the 11^th hole. Despite dropping a shot at 15, he stuck around to the bitter end.

Overnight leader Luca Filippi faded into seventh position after shooting a 75, while Louis de Jager and Jaco Ahlers joined Erickson in fourth place, two shots behind, after they both made 70s on Sunday.

HARARE, Zimbabwe – Just about every golfer chats about bringing an aggressive approach to the course, but it doesn’t always translate into reality or a low score. But it did for 23-year-old Luca Filippi on Friday in the second round of the FBC Zimbabwe Open as he fired a superb seven-under-par 65 at Chapman Golf Club to claim a five-shot lead heading into the weekend.

Filippi, who began the day in a tie for fifth after shooting 68 at Royal Harare Golf Club on the first day, was just one-under-par through nine holes on Friday, but he knew he was playing well and stuck at it. Even missing a short birdie putt on the 10^th did not derail him and he then exploded into action with successive birdies on the 11^th and 12^th holes, an eagle on the par-five 14^th, and further birdies on 16 and 18.

“I played nicely from the start, even though I was only one-under on the front nine,” Filippi said. “I had some nice opportunities for birdie and then missed a short one on 10, but it was great to then start making putts. I was especially happy about my eagle on 14 because I had only played the par-fives in level-par on the front.

“I wanted to be aggressive and on both courses they’re using for the tournament you’ve got to hit your Driver very well. If you position yourself well off the tee then there are lots of birdies out there.

“I was doing that well today, although the putting was a little tricky at Chapman, the greens aren’t rolling quite as pure as at Royal Harare. But I knew there was definitely a low score out here.

“I will keep my game-plan pretty much the same over the weekend, shooting four-under at Royal Harare on the first day was a good start. I need to keep being aggressive, I can’t afford to sit back and relax. I need to keep my foot on the pedal, be aggressive off the tee and give my putts a chance,” Filippi said.

The Milnerton Golf Club representative, who is on 11-under-par at the halfway stage, will need to keep an eye on second-placed Louis de Jager (-6), who it must always be remembered did the South African Amateur Championship double in 2007, has won five times on the Sunshine Tour and competed in over 100 DP World Tour events.

All that experience has come to the fore in solid back-to-back rounds of 69 by De Jager, while in-form first-round leader Louis Albertse is with a group of five golfers at five-under-par after shooting 74 at Chapman GC.

Zambia’s Madalitso Muthiya kept himself in the top-three with a level-par 72 on the same course, while veteran Jaco Ahlers shot a 69 at Royal Harare to also go five-under for the tournament. Albert Venter and American Dan Erickson are the other golfers on that mark.

Birdwatchers will tell you that a minor claim to fame of Gqeberha is that all four species of South African Bunting can be found in the area, and they stick around all year long too.

But while South Africa’s top-order batsmen were bunting the ball around St George’s Park on Friday, none of them were able to stay at the crease long enough to get past 70, which was the score made by captain and opening batsman Dean Elgar.

Keegan Petersen (64) and Temba Bavuma (67) both batted with impressive class as well, and Ryan Rickelton made his way to 42 before falling to a reverse-sweep.

It all amounted to a total of 278 for five after the Proteas had won the toss and elected to bat under heavily overcast skies on a greenish pitch.

And Petersen said he still feels South Africa are ahead after the first day of the second Test against Bangladesh.

“I think it’s a decent score, although losing those two late wickets has levelled things out a bit. But I think we are still a bit ahead of the game.

“It would have been nice to just be three down because then we would really have been in the driving seat.

“We did well, it was a tricky pitch with a bit in it for the seamers, but we dealt with it well. But hundreds are just eluding us, but it’s not for the want of trying.

“Hundreds would put us in even better positions, while making fifties and getting out kind of balances things out. With hundreds you really get ahead in the game,” Petersen said.

One aspect of the South African batting that is working well is the new opening partnership between Elgar and Sarel Erwee, who may have only scored 24 on Friday, but that ensured a solid start with his 52-run stand with his skipper.

Elgar is enjoying a tremendous series with half-centuries in every innings, and that has lifted him into second place on South Africa’s all-time run-scoring list against Bangladesh. The left-hander has 606 runs in eight innings at an average of 86.57, and has overtaken Hashim Amla (602 @ 66.88), with just Graeme Smith (743 @ 82.55) ahead of him.

Arguably more impressively, Elgar is now the leading run-scorer in all Tests at the historic St George’s Park ground, going to 641 in 14 innings at 49.30, overtaking Jacques Kallis (617 @ 36.29) and AB de Villiers (591 @ 49.25).

“Dean obviously leads from the front and has been extremely consistent,” Petersen said. “He’s leading properly with this young team.

“He’s a hard leader and he expects us to be at our best all the time. We just try and follow him.”

Given the Proteas’ history of being slow starters in series, there are those who would be tempted to arrange that they always lose the first match of a rubber like they did against India, before rebounding superbly to claim the spoils 2-1.

Even captain Dean Elgar admitted in the wake of the epic seven-wicket win in the decisive third Test at Newlands that he was aware, and rather bemused by, the trend. South Africa were well-beaten in the first Test against India at Centurion, going down by 113 runs. But they then staged a remarkable comeback, winning by seven wickets at both the Wanderers and in Cape Town, chasing down daunting targets of more than 200 on pitches with plenty of movement on both occasions.

“There were so many lows in that first game and losing first-up is never ideal at home,” Elgar said. “But it’s almost a trait of the Proteas that we need to be 1-0 down to realise that our backs are against the wall.

“So after losing the first Test we really knew we were up against it, but the guys really stood up from a character point of view. It worked to bring the best out of the players.

“I’m very relieved the guys responded the way they did and it was a proper squad effort, and a few individuals did exceptional things as well.

“Those were the highlights – the individual performances of players like Keegan Petersen, Marco Jansen, KG Rabada, Temba Bavuma and Lungi Ngidi. It boils down to the mutual respect we have in the squad,” Elgar said.

After all the turmoil over the last couple of years, the sensational victory over the world’s No.1-ranked side is evidence that things are stabilising in South African cricket. Under-fire coach Mark Boucher is comfortable that his national team are doing okay whatever his strident critics might be saying.

“I believe we turned the corner quite a while ago, actually. We’ve had pretty solid results for the last six months to a year,” Boucher said. “We’ve tried out a few players and they are coming good now.

“So we are getting some depth, but we are keeping our feet firmly on the ground because we know we are not the finished product. But I liked the intensity we showed, especially in the run-chases when we were looking to score,” Boucher said.