Ken Borland

The Blair Atholl Golf and Country Estate course will play at 7462 metres for the South African Open starting on Thursday, the longest in DP World Tour history, and it will be a “Driver-fest” according to leading local contender Dylan Frittelli.

The 32-year-old Frittelli is one of a host of South Africans who generally compete abroad who have returned for the national open, the second oldest in the game, and still considered a hugely prestigious title.

Frittelli, who competes on the PGA Tour, is known as a solid and lengthy driver of the ball, so he was looking forward to tackling Blair Atholl for the first time.

“It’s what I expected – a long course with wide fairways,” Frittelli said after his pro-am round on Wednesday. “It will be a Driver-fest and I’m just going to try and hit the ball as long and as straight as I can.

“It’s a cliche but that and making some putts, on greens that have a lot more character than I was expecting, literally defines this course.

“I think we will be hitting a lot more shots from 140-190 metres on the par-fours, but if it stays dry and hot then we’ll still be hitting the ball 340 off the tee.

“So I think it’s going to be a good mix and I would urge the organisers not to push the tees forward. We don’t want 23-under winning the SA Open. And I’ve got to win the SA Open before my career is over,” Frittelli said.

Charl Schwartzel is another who is extremely determined to win the SA Open for the first time after some near misses, and he used to live on the Blair Atholl Estate, so he knows the course intimately. He and other returning South Africans like Branden Grace, George Coetzee, Thriston Lawrence and Shaun Norris are always a threat in these co-sanctioned events.

Defending champion Danie van Tonder looked in good form in last week’s Joburg Open but his putter just refused to play along, but a new host course for the SA Open could well throw up a new champion.

Dean Burmester seems to always be contending somewhere in the world these days and he is back, hungry and equipped with one of the biggest drives in the field.

“Blair Atholl is loooong, that was my first impression,” Burmester said. “There will be some positional stuff required and it lends itself to good mid and long iron play, but a lot of it is going to come down to long-hitting.

“The bunkers are often 300-310 metres from the tee and you need to be able to cover that in your game or it’s going to be a long week for you. If you’re short of that, then you better pack your fairway woods and metal hybrids.”

Wilco Nienaber is always up there with the longest drivers on tour and was in contention at the Joburg Open, but Louis de Jager is perhaps the dark horse to watch. He is a quality driver of the ball and his fifth place in the Joburg Open was his fourth top-10 finish since August.

Louis Oosthuizen has a few homes scattered around South Africa and the United States but Augusta is a place where he has always looked pretty comfortable. Since his runner-up finish in 2012, he has only finished outside of the top-30 twice, earning himself $1 733 600 (more than R25 million) and he has finished under-par on his last three visits. South Africa’s top-ranked golfer has only played in five events this year, but he is sure to be up for the occasion at Augusta.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout won the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the SA Open on successive weekends at the end of last year and finished 2020 ranked 34^th in the world, a remarkable jump from 521^st at the end of 2018. The 26-year-old is aiming to base himself on the U.S. PGA Tour and is well on his way to gaining membership, helped by a top-10 finish in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He is already making an impression in America and his straight hitting, superb short game and strong mind are ideally suited to the challenges of Augusta.

Augusta is not an easy place to start a comeback after injury deposits you outside the top-200 in the world rankings, and that’s the reality facing South Africa’s last Masters champion, Charl Schwartzel. The 2011 winner has been through a tough time lately with a wrist injury but, without any real form behind him, he showed the value of experience at Augusta in last year’s November Masters as he finished tied-25^th, his best finish in a major since 2017. Hopefully he can produce something similar this week.

Dylan Frittelli is one of the lesser-known South African stars but you can’t hide his pedigree – World No.68 and the best South African finisher at last year’s Masters, in a tie for fifth. After missing four of his seven cuts on the PGA Tour this year, he bounced back by making the last 16 of the World Matchplay Championships two weeks ago, before he lost to English star Tommy Fleetwood. The 30-year-old is still working for more consistency in his game after changing his Driver and going for more clubhead speed, but he is a dark horse this week.

Louis Oosthuizen will once again hog the Major limelight amongst South African golfers as he tees off at the Masters on Thursday in one of the feature three-balls, but there are also five other local stars gunning for glory at Augusta.

It will be a Masters unlike any other because not only have spectators been banned due to the Covid-19 pandemic but it is also taking place in winter, far removed from it’s usual slot at the height of spring in April.

Oosthuizen, South Africa’s highest-ranked golfer at No.19 in the world and third in the U.S. Open in September, has been drawn with new sensation Bryson de Chambeau, who won the previous Major, and Spain’s Jon Rahm, who is also one of the favourites to win the famous green jacket.

The 38-year-old Oosthuizen is considered one of the top draws in world golf due to his stellar record in the Majors. He may have won just one – the 2010 Open Championship – but apart from finishing as the runner-up in all four, he has also claimed three other top-10 finishes.

Erik van Rooyen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Dylan Frittelli are the other South African golfers within the top-100 in the world rankings who will be playing at Augusta, with Van Rooyen and Bezuidenhout making their Masters debuts.

Van Rooyen told his Twitter followers that he had goosebumps watching videos of Augusta and “cannot wait for the first tee shot”, while Bezuidenhout described it as “a dream come true”.

Justin Harding, on his debut at Augusta, was South Africa’s best finisher in last year’s tournament, his tie for 12^th earning him a place in the 2020 field.

Charl Schwartzel has dropped out of the world top 200 after struggling since his return from a wrist injury, but is in the field thanks to his 2011 Masters triumph.

Trevor Immelman, the 2008 Masters champion, also had an exemption to play, but the South African has decided to be in the television commentary box instead.

Dylan Frittelli is South Africa’s fastest rising golf star and a stellar 2017 has seen him zoom up the world golf rankings from number 152 at the start of the year to 55^th when he teed it up at the Joburg Open at Randpark Golf Club this week.

The 27-year-old can certainly hit a little white dimpled ball as cleanly and powerfully as anyone else in the country, courtesy of the natural ball skills that saw him earn junior provincial colours in baseball, soccer, hockey and golf, but Frittelli clearly has another great strength, one that is as priceless as a ming vase when it comes to a sport as mentally taxing as golf.

Frittelli is clearly a deep thinker on the game and much of that thinking can be classified as lateral judging by the unusual decisions he has made.

Golf started as a Sunday driving range occupation with his provincial hockey-playing father, with a few rounds with friends over the holidays, but at the age of 11, Frittelli went to a World of Golf camp where his considerable talent was first spotted by a coach.

“From then I took things seriously, but I still played a bunch of sports until I was 15,” Frittelli said.

It was when the Johannesburg-born youngster went to St Albans boarding school in Pretoria that he made his first eccentric decision that worked out wonderfully.

“At St Albans, I asked the headmaster if I could just play golf and he said no, because they needed me in the cricket and hockey teams. So I did home-schooling instead, it was a bit of a mad scientist idea and I just said ‘let’s see what happens’. I started matric in Grade 10 and was done a year earlier than if I’d stayed in school,” Frittelli explained.

The tall, dark-haired Frittelli continues to do things differently to this day, foregoing time-consuming and often energy-draining practice rounds on courses he has played before, and even taking a compass on to the tee with him to ensure he gets his angles dead right.

The extra year he gained through home-schooling allowed Frittelli to not only play more golf but also seriously consider trying to get into the American college golf programme.

“I had it in mind that I really wanted to go to the United States and when I won the Junior World Championships in San Diego when I was 17, that opened doors for me. It was between the University of Texas and Arkansas, and Texas offered me a full scholarship,” he said.

And, by a quirk of fate, a young Jordan Spieth soon also arrived at the University of Texas and he and Frittelli would earn the Longhorns their first national championship title in 40 years in 2012, the South African sinking a 30-foot putt on the 18^th to claim the win.

“Jordan was still a junior then, but I stayed in the same dorm as him at the Spirit International and helped persuade him to come to Texas. We were pretty much playing at the same level back then and to make the putt to win Nationals was huge, especially since we hadn’t won for so long,” Frittelli said.

Frittelli has won twice on the European Tour this year and, although his chances of adding to that tally at the Joburg Open are slim as he ended his second round 10 shots off the pace, he looks set to break into the top-50 in the world rankings in the near future.

And then he will be going to the majors, from which he hopes to get into the U.S. PGA Tour, especially since he still has a house in Austin, Texas.

He also badly wants to win in South Africa, to show local fans, who have not had much chance to get to know him, what he’s made of.

“I’ve only gained spots through qualifying school on the European and Sunshine tours but I would love to play in the U.S. as well. I also haven’t had any big victories in South Africa, which I would love to do because that would definitely cement my standing here.

“But I pride myself on being able to play well away from home and I won in Canada, the U.S. and Puerto Rico as an amateur, and now in Europe and Mauritius as a pro. Every good result you get breeds confidence and I felt really calm winning in Mauritius last week, which is how you want to be. No stress,” the laid-back surfing fan said.

https://citizen.co.za/sport/1753864/sas-fastest-rising-golf-star/