Ken Borland

A trio of exciting talents topped the leaderboard after the second round of the African Bank Championship at Glendower Golf Club on Thursday, with Jayden Schaper, Danie van Tonder and Martin Rohwer all tied on seven-under-par as the second event in the Rise Up Series heads into the final round on Friday.

Jaco Ahlers is obviously also very much in contention after he fired the round of the day, a four-under-par 68, to climb into fourth place on six-under, just one stroke behind. And the experience and skills of Darren Fichardt (-5), the winner last week at Killarney, Neil Schietekat (-5), Jake Roos (-4) and George Coetzee (-4) also cannot be discounted.

The combination of a top-class course with slick winter greens and the vagaries of a blustery wind made for a particularly tough test in Edenvale on Thursday, and overnight leader Rohwer could only follow up his brilliant 65 on the first day with a level-par 72. That allowed Van Tonder and Schaper, who both shot two-under 70s, to catch him.

“It got tough out there with the wind blowing at about 30km/h and the greens are slick too. You’ve got to pick your lines carefully and not always go for the flags otherwise you open yourself up for three-putts. It’s about hitting fairways and greens, you’ve got to stick with your selection of club, hit it as hard as you can and just hope it goes on. With the gusts you’ve got to time it correctly,” Van Tonder said after roaring out of the blocks with four birdies on the front nine but then coming home in 38.

Rohwer regained the lead with an eagle at the par-five 15^th, but then three-putted the last to slip back to seven-under. Nevertheless, the 27-year-old from Kloof Country Club was pleased with a day of solid ball-striking.

“I was really solid today from tee-to-green, I felt like I had control of the ball all through the round, but I just struggled on the greens. That three-putt on the last leaves a sour taste, but to be level-par with the conditions we were playing in, that’s not too bad. You were just not sure what the wind was doing so it was difficult to hit your numbers,” Rohwer said.

The winner of the Royal Swazi Open last year says he is up to the challenge posed by both the conditions and the likes of playing partner Van Tonder, who was on the charge early on in the second round.

“Sometimes you just have to play more conservatively, but there is still a fair share of opportunity out there. The wind is mostly across though and, with where the pins are located, it’s difficult to get close. It’s supposed to be windy again tomorrow, but I look forward to a third round in a row with Danie. I knew I was playing well today so I wasn’t too concerned about falling behind,” Rohwer said.

The 19-year-old Schaper showed enormous maturity as he held his round together after an up-and-down start in which he had two bogeys, a birdie and an eagle in the first five holes, before dropping successive shots around the turn.

“There was a lot more wind today, so it was a bit tougher, and the pins were all tucked in on the front nine, so I didn’t make a good start. I only hit three fairways in my first 12 holes and made a couple of three-putts, so I really put myself under pressure. But the back nine is much more accessible, I pulled myself together and finished well,” Schaper said.

But the hulking figure of Ahlers, who has won nine times on the Sunshine Tour, looms large, especially with the way he simply overpowered the par-fives on Thursday, collecting eagles on both the eighth and 15^th holes, and birdieing the 13^th.

The country’s top golfers are going to Killarney Country Club on Wednesday morning to restart the professional game with the Betway Championship, and Danie van Tonder, given the way he finished last season, is going to be one of the favourites to claim the Sunshine Tour’s first title after the Covid-19 Lockdown.

Van Tonder finished in the top-10 five times in January and February, lifting him to second place in the final order of merit. With winner JC Ritchie not playing this week, the 29-year-old from Boksburg is looking to maintain that sort of consistency. But he is going to have to rein in his usual aggressive play a little to succeed on a course like Killarney which requires more strategy than power.

“I had three months off which gave me time to work on things, try and fix some things to make me more consistent. When you’re playing week-after-week, you can’t really change things and it takes like 21 days to teach your body something new. But we start over again now, I’ve lost some weight and I’m stronger, so I’m really looking forward to getting out there again.

“Killarney has lots of doglegs, water hazards and ditches, so it might not be a long course, but it is difficult. You’ve got to get your lay-ups right and pitch-and-putt very well. I’m normally very attacking, but you can’t be too aggressive going over the trees, and there are so many of them. Plus the greens are firm, so if you’re pitching from the rough you’re going to be in trouble,” Van Tonder told The Citizen on Tuesday.

For Sunshine Tour stalwart Jaco Ahlers it will be business as usual though, as the 37-year-old veteran of 268 tournaments looks to build on one of his most successful seasons ever, finishing third on the order of merit for 2019/20.

“I’m really looking forward to playing competitive golf again after the longest layoff in my career. We’ve had time to get ready and the game is pretty decent. It was in a good space when we stopped playing and I’ve just worked on a little swing feeling. But I’m very surprised how good the game feels, I don’t feel I’ve lost a lot. But it’s just the mentality of competitive golf that has to come back.

“It’s a different mindset to the little money games you have at home, you need to get those tournament golf feelings back and sometimes it comes quickly and sometimes it doesn’t. And Killarney is always a really good, demanding layout on which you’ve got to place the ball in certain positions to have a shot in. You’ve really got to think your way around and you can’t just bomb Driver,” Ahlers said.

I have seen many weird, wonderful and not so wonderful things at the Harlequins bar in the Sun City main hotel and this was one of them – the German Interlausen Boogie with Left Arm Dominant Dance Club whirling and whirring around as the cocktail bar singer enjoyed her best audience ever and thanked her lucky stars no drunk men were trying to pick her up.

What was initially a captivating sight soon turned into a repetitive affair though as the dozen dancers all just did the same move,  over and over again, in identical fashion.

It reminded me that what makes sport special is the variety – the many different ways there are to be successful and the many different techniques that are employed.

Sun City is of course hosting the Nedbank Golf Challenge at the moment; golf being a game that revolves around myriad statistics and in which technique is absolutely key. Being a centimetre offline with your swing can result in disaster.

And yet there are all sorts of different swings out there. Jim Furyk, a two-time winner at Gary Player Country Club, is famous for his unorthodox swing but has enjoyed consistent success at the highest level for 15 years.

Danie van Tonder is having his unusual swing – which is more like a brutal punch at the ball than anything flowing and graceful – scrutinised on global television for the first time but, as fellow South African Tim Clark said, it works.

“He can obviously play. That’s the beauty of golf, you don’t have to have a cookie-cutter swing, and I’ve always admired those who go out and do it their own way,” said Clark, who has made a highly successful career for himself in the United States through sheer determination as much as talent.

Cricketer Phillip Hughes, so movingly laid to rest this week, chased his dream all the way to the top with an unorthodox technique that certainly frustrated South African bowlers. As recently as July 29 he smashed a brilliant 202 from 151 balls to lead Australia A to a massive win over South Africa A in a one-day game in Darwin.

It’s those that bring something different to sport that give such pleasure.

But there is one part of sport that I am desperate to see more uniformity in and that is in the refereeing of rugby Tests.

The governors of the game have to act urgently because I am convinced the winner of next year’s Rugby World Cup will be decided by a refereeing decision, given that almost every Test this year has been marred by some controversy over officiating or gross inconsistencies.

The yellow-carding of Springbok wing Cornal Hendricks for chasing an up-and-under last weekend against Wales was sickening. The number of times this year that players have jumped into each other contesting a high ball would need a proper census to count; there were even similar incidents in the same game that referee John Lacey was happy to let go.

Sure, intemperate efforts to compete in the air need to be policed but Lacey’s decision was ridiculous and I hope just an example of sheer incompetence.

But it would be reckless in the extreme for World Rugby to naively ignore the possibility that their game is infected by darker elements.

Match-fixers have afflicted cricket, who have at least taken steps to deal with the problem, but rugby doesn’t seem to think their game could possibly also be affected. Or they don’t care.

But like an asp striking at the breast, officiating controversies do far more damage to the image of the game than most of the things the administrators seem concerned about.