There were contrasting fortunes for the two veterans who posted the best first round scores on the East and West courses of Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club on Friday as overnight leader Nic Henning found himself out in the cold again, while Wallie Coetsee was sitting pretty at the top of the leaderboard for the Joburg Open.

Henning, who opened the tournament with a course record equalling 62 on the West Course, started well enough on Friday with a birdie on the East Course’s 472-metre par-five opening hole. But a horrible slab of four consecutive bogeys from the fifth hole put him under pressure and, although he birdied the 11^th hole, a double-bogey at 13 derailed him once again and he finished with two more bogeys to shoot a 78 that left him way down the leaderboard.

So far down, in fact, that Henning (-3), the good news story of the first day, actually missed the cut, which was made on four-under-par, by one stroke.

While Henning sunk beneath the waves, Coetsee surfaced at the end of a cooler day in Linksfield with a one-shot lead as he backed up his brilliant first-round 66 on the East Course with a six-under-par 65 on the West Course to go to 12-under-par overall.

Beneath the 42-year-old South African on the leaderboard are three golfers on 11-under, compatriots Garth Mulroy and Tjaart van der Walt, and Englishman Simon Dyson, while Niclas Fasth and Anthony Wall are on 10-under.

Coetsee has been on tour since 1992 and, while he enjoys the quiet life in Jeffrey’s Bay, there is clearly still plenty of competitive fire burning in him as he started the year by getting an Asian Tour card through their gruelling qualifying school in Thailand.

The laidback winner of two Sunshine Tour events spends every evening after his round braaing and he says his relaxed approach helped him on Friday to not push too hard, especially during a run of seven successive pars that followed a bogey on the seventh hole.

“I was very patient and my game plan was just to leave the tough pins, go for the safer side. You can’t attack every flag, there’s a time to go and a time to be safe. Patience is the key, you can’t force things, it will happen,” Coetsee said.

“You live for the moment when you play well, and I must enjoy that, but I’m back to level-par tomorrow. I need to just stay in the present and tonight I’ll have another braai.”

The patient approach paid off for Coetsee when he eagled the par-five 15^th and then another birdie on the par-four 17^th gave him the lead.

“I’d had very good up-and-downs on 13 and 14, and then on 15 I hit a very good drive and had 218 metres to the flag. I hit a four-iron pin-high, five or six metres from the hole and sank the putt,” Coetsee explained.

Van der Walt is another old stager enjoying a wonderful tournament and he reached the turn on 12-under after picking up four birdies on the East Course, before running out of steam a bit on the back nine and settling for a 69.

Dyson also went to town on the front nine, with three successive birdies from the sixth hole setting him up for a 67.

Trevor Fisher Junior may not even have a European Tour card, but by the time the 33-year-old had bished, bashed, boshed his way around the East and West Courses of Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club, he had soared into the Joburg Open lead on 15-under-par after two rounds.

It was a superb performance by Fisher, who may have seven Sunshine Tour wins but has only one top-three finish – in last year’s Joburg Open – in events co-sanctioned with the European Tour.

Richard Sterne, the 2008 Joburg Open champion, shot a 65 on the tougher East Course later in the day for a share of the lead, with other seasoned European Tour campaigners in George Coetzee and Charl Schwartzel lurking ominously on 12-under and 10-under respectively.

But for Fisher, the Joburg Open represents a chance for him to take the next step in a career that has only really taken off in the last two years. A member of the Sunshine Tour since 2002, the Modderfontein Golf Club member broke into the top 20 on the order of merit for the first time in 2008, breaking into the top 10 in 2011 and finishing fourth in 2012, an achievement which won him the Players’ Player of the Year award earlier this week.

“I think it’s maturity. I’m a late bloomer and I’ve played better as I’ve got older and the last three or four years have been good for me. But I need to get to the next level now. I’ve been here for 10 years and it’s been a good stepping stone to the European Tour, but I’ve stepped on a lot of stones now and it’s time to get to the top,” Fisher said after his fabulous 62 on the West Course on Friday.

Fisher made use of another fast start to settle the nerves and set him on his way. Having birdied the first three holes on the East Course in the first round, on his way to a 66, he eagled the West Course’s second hole on Friday and followed up with a birdie on the third. By way of change, he birdied the last three holes on Friday as well.

“I think you have to feed off those nerves, they’re always there. It was a great day out there. Everything just happened for me and I sank the putts I needed to sink. I was patient with myself, I walked slow and did everything slow, and it was just a good day,” Fisher said.

“You’ve got to be in the moment, you can’t think about your score … I think that’s the secret to scoring low around here: not trying to make birdies, but trying to hit good shots,” Fisher added.

Sterne, who has not dropped a shot in 36 holes, is clearly in superb form having finished in second place in last week’s Dubai Desert Classic, but he is still playing cautious golf.

“I was quite conservative, you have to be on this course, and my game didn’t feel great but I putted well and had a couple of good up-and-downs,” Sterne said.

Coetzee, who has finished in the top three seven times in the last two years on the European Tour, is in third place midway through the Joburg Open, having shot an inspired 64 on the East Course on Friday.

With his failure to grab the breakthrough win he surely deserves becoming something of a topic for discussion amongst the media, Coetzee said he was also just trying to stay in the moment and would be happy to finish in the top 10.

“I try not to think about the win. Every now and then it will pop up and you have to get back into the zone, into the now. I tell myself that I want to finish top 10 instead, and that normally calms me down.  If the win comes I’ll be happy, but if it doesn’t, as long as I’m playing well, I’ll be happy,” Coetzee said.

Schwartzel was the other golfer to storm up the leaderboard on Friday, shooting a 65 on the West Course to climb from a tie for 25^th into a share of fourth with fellow South African Keith Horne and Chile’s Felipe Aguilar.

Schwartzel may have shot six-under-par on the day, but he admitted that he had battled to govern his frustrations, particularly with his putter.

“My putter was the problem, I’ve missed five putts from inside three feet on the last two days and that’s very frustrating. It was even more frustrating today because I hit two or three very nice long putts and that’s the hard part. On 10, I missed a putt from one-and-a-half feet, if I’d tapped it with one hand I probably would have made it!” Schwartzel complained.

He then added, by way of warning to the three golfers ahead of him on the leaderboard: “But my ball-striking was good, where I left off last year. So the big thing is that I’m hitting the ball well and giving myself chances. I just need to make more putts from short range,” Schwartzel said.

How Fisher and Coetzee handle the nerves of chasing down that big win will determine whether they can hold off Sterne, who has five European Tour titles, and serial-winner Schwartzel.

Bryce Easton’s highly noticeable yellow floppy hat is at odds with his modest self-effacing personality, but the 25-year-old thrust himself into the limelight with a seven-under-par 65, that included a hole-in-one, on the tougher East Course in the opening round of the Joburg Open at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club on Thursday.

Easton’s brilliant round left him one stroke behind the early lead of eight-under-par set by 2008 champion Richard Sterne on the easier West Course, and was one of the main talking points of the morning.

But the lanky Durbanite was still surprised by all the fuss.

“Why do the media want to talk to me? Surely they’re waiting for Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace?” he said.

While Easton did not drop a stroke and holed his tee-shot on the 167-metre par-three 12th, he said he was not entirely satisfied with his round, having erred too many times for his liking with the driver.

“I missed a few fairways so I still need to figure out the driver a bit, I have some work to do this afternoon. But it’s nice to have a round where you don’t hit the ball so well but you still score well.

Golf’s a funny game, sometimes you hit the ball flush and you don’t score so well,” Easton said.

Easton took a seven-iron on the 12th hole and the ace meant he went away with a million bonus points from the Hilton Hotel group, sponsored by Investec, which translates to about R100 000 of free accommodation.

“It’s my first hole-in-one and you obviously don’t think about it when you’re playing the hole. But then the ball goes in and it takes you a couple of seconds to realise it’s disappeared. It was an awesome feeling and the million Hilton points is a nice bonus,” he said.

It was a great day in the office for the two-time winner on the 2012 Sunshine Tour and there is always the expectation of going lower on the West course at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington. But Easton  will not be taking anything for granted.

“I know the West course a bit better, before today I’d only played a single practice round on the East, but you never know how things will go.”

With 2012 having been a breakthrough year for the 2011 rookie, Easton was asked whether he was targeting the European Tour co-sanctioned events this year.

“Yes, I want to play more consistently and compete more in these bigger events. Last year I had a couple of wins, but I didn’t play so well in these co-sanctioned tournaments,” Easton said.

Having won the Sun City Challenge, eagling the last hole to force a playoff, and the Zebula leg of the Vodacom Origins of Golf two weeks later in 2012, Easton is clearly a golfer whose talent is beginning to bloom.

Richard Finch’s first thought as his tee-shot headed straight for the cup on the par-three 12th hole on the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington East Course was “Oh no!”

Finch’s hole-in-one helped him into a share of the lead after the second round of the Joburg Open, but his initial feeling was that he had achieved the “perfect fluke” on the wrong day.

“On 12 I looked at the back of the tee and read the board which said there was a million rand available for a hole-in-one in the final round. As my shot landed I turned around and said ‘Oh no!’ because I had hit it on the perfect line,” Finch said.

The ball went slightly downhill before lodging in the hole, so Finch only knew he had sunk his tee shot by the reaction of the spectators around the green.

“Some of [playing partner] Darren Fichardt’s family and friends were at the green and they started cheering, so it was clear it had gone in,” Finch said.

Finch’s six-iron from 188 metres was the highlight of a top-class round of six-under-par 66 on the tough East Course that saw the Englishman soar to 11-under-par overall and a share of the lead with countryman Robert Rock and South Africa’s George Coetzee.

“Starting today at five-under-par was interesting – a few birdies and you’re right up there amongst the lead, but a couple of bogeys and you miss the cut. But I’m delighted with today, I thought some of the pins were really tucked away, so I just tried to be sensible and get it on to the green to give myself a chance. I managed to roll a few in, which was good,” the 34-year-old said.

While there may not be any formal award for Finch’s second-round hole-in-one, his other ace in South Africa did net him a most useful prize.

“I made one at Humewood a few years ago during the SA Open. It was sponsored by South African Airways, so I won a million air miles, which was nice.”

One imagines Finch didn’t protest too much either when he made a hole-in-one at the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles in 2010 and won a bottle of Blue!

The European Tour regular will be after the big prize in Johannesburg, however, – a third title, a one-year exemption, 22 points for the world rankings and the winner’s cheque of R1.8 million.