Ken Borland

DURBAN, KwaZulu-Natal  – Brazilian Adilson da Silva has been dogged lately by an inconsistent putter and a struggle to maintain focus on the course, but he put it all together in fine style on Thursday as he claimed a share of the lead after the first round of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series event at Mount Edgecombe Country Club Estate.

Da Silva opened the third leg of this season’s Vodacom Origins of Golf Series with a polished four-under-par 66, sharing the lead with Dundee Golf Club’s Louis Albertse.

The 49-year-old Da Silva started at the 10^th on Mount Edgecombe’s The Woods course and moved to two-under with back-to-back birdies on the par-three 12^th and par-four 13^th.

There was a bit of a wobble though when he bogeyed the 18^th and second holes, sandwiching a birdie on the par-four first, but Da Silva said his efforts to stay mentally focused have started paying off as he picked up three more birdies, returning to the clubhouse in 32 strokes.

Playing in the wet, it was easy to get frustrated and allow a promising round to fritter away, but the experienced Da Silva regrouped brilliantly.

“With all the breaks between tournaments due to Covid, I was really struggling to concentrate on the course, but playing events now every couple of weeks has helped a lot. I’ve pushed myself to focus my mind on the target and not worry so much about my swing. Otherwise it’s a strange feeling of not really being there. So I’m trying to visualise, put more emphasis on the shot, keep my mind focused on the present.

“I missed a couple of putts and then made silly bogeys on 18 and two, you’re getting wet and it’s easy to get frustrated. But I just told myself to hang in there, I hit most of the fairways and greens after that and made some key putts.

“My putting has been on and off lately, which is so frustrating when you’re hitting the ball well but you feel like you’re not playing well because you can’t make a score. But today was better – 28 putts and I can feel something building,” Da Silva said.

The 13-time Sunshine Tour winner also shared the lead after the first round of his previous event, the Sunshine Tour Invitational at Centurion Country Club two weeks ago, before finishing in a tie for 12^th after closing with a pair of 71s. This time, with his putter playing along, Da Silva is hoping to maintain his first-round momentum. But he warns “You can’t just run after it here, this is a course that gives you nothing.”

Chasing Da Silva and Albertse, who coincidentally also finished in a tie for 12^th at Centurion, are Siyanda Mwandla and Riekus Nortje, who shot 67s on Thursday.

Eleven golfers are two shots back on two-under-par, including Alex Haindl, winner of the second leg of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series at Sishen at the end of last month, Ockie Strydom, Lyle Rowe, Trevor Fisher Jnr and Anton Haig.

There were so many birdies, a couple of eagles and very nearly an albatross for the red-hot Danie van Tonder on Wednesday that one half-expected the Rise Up Series order of merit leader to shoot something new and extraordinary like a gosling in the first round of the Vodacom Championship Reloaded at Huddle Park Golf Club.

Van Tonder instead settled for a wonderful nine-under-par 63 in a superb round of golf that meant the baby Egyptian Geese in danger were the ones way down the fairway and certainly not those around the water hazards. The 29-year-old collected six birdies and two eagles as he basically overwhelmed the course from the tees. He very nearly scored an albatross two at the 438-metre par-five 14^th hole, when his approach lipped out of the hole.

“I’m very happy, the Driver gave me lots of chances with wedges to get really close to the pins. On 14, I hit a five-wood off the tee and then had 110 to the pin, I took my lob-wedge and said to my caddy that I must go for some spin, and I spun it back almost into the hole for a two. But almost all the holes are birdie holes, you can attack the pins and there are lots of chances on every hole.

“I’m quite happy about everything in my game, it’s great to see my hard work paying off and I’m just going to keep on practising and trying to get better. It’s a new day tomorrow and I will try and make a 10-under 62, you never know. I’ll go home now and wait for the rain to come – the greens are already very receptive and rolling nicely,” Van Tonder said after starting his hunt for a third Rise Up Series title in perfect fashion.

Four-time Sunshine Tour winner Christiaan Basson has had a disappointing Rise Up Series, only making the cut at the African Bank Championship at Glendower, but on Wednesday he played like he had a personal grudge against Huddle Park as he fired an eight-under-par 64.

He was joined on that score soon afterwards when Louis de Jager, playing in the same three-ball as Van Tonder, finished with three 3s to also sign for a brilliant 64.

It was also a good day for the experienced and consistent Jacques Blaauw, who also had two eagles on his way to a 65, and Musiwalo Nethunzwi, who also finished on seven-under alongside rookie Malcolm Mitchell.

Young Jayden Schaper produced one of the more exciting rounds of the day as he eagled the first three par-fives on his way to a 66 that gave him seventh place all by himself.

On a day when one golfer was heard to enquire “where is the rest of the par-five?”, it was a very disappointing first round for Darren Fichardt, Van Tonder’s only rival for the Rise Up Series order of merit title, as he let himself down by coming home in 38 shots (the back nine was tougher on Wednesday) to finish with a 72. With 64 golfers shooting under-par on the first day, Fichardt’s battle is now to make the cut.

Danie van Tonder has shown his willingness to dare to be different and his commitment to an aggressive approach, and he is not going to change any of that when he tees it up early on Wednesday morning at Huddle Park Golf Club in the first round of the Vodacom Championship Reloaded, the final event of the Rise Up Series he is currently leading.

Van Tonder, given the incredible consistency he has shown in finishing in the top-10 in his last 13 events, dating back a year, will be the favourite in a two-horse race to win the order of merit for the Sunshine Tour’s return-to-play series, with Darren Fichardt trailing the 29-year-old from Copperleaf by more than R37 000.

George Coetzee is third, but is away in Europe, and Ulrich van den Berg is fourth, but nearly R112 000 behind Van Tonder, with the winner of the Vodacom Championship Reloaded taking home R95 100.

“Nothing will change, I’m just carrying on with practising and working hard. I’ve played practice rounds at Huddle Park both yesterday [Monday] and today [Tuesday] and the greens are nice and soft and rolling nicely, so that will suit my aggressive style. I’m going to go flag-hunting, I can hit the ball right at the pin and not worry about it bouncing off the green.

“I don’t mind what anyone else is doing, it’s the same for everyone and I will still just go out there and go for fairways and greens and make as many birdies as I can. There are four par-fives and nine par-fours, so if I can shoot six or seven-under then that will be a good round. It’s quite a nice course because I can hit Driver everywhere,” Van Tonder told The Citizen on Tuesday.

There are many in the local game who see similarities between Van Tonder and Bryson de Chambeau, the U.S. Open champion who is threatening to change the entire sport in ferociously single-minded fashion. The South African, who jokingly points out that he is a couple of years older than De Chambeau so he must have copied him, shares the same stiff-armed swing and unflinchingly aggressive approach with the American.

“I’ve always been happy to do my own thing. My swing is not textbook, so I had a lot of people advising me against pro golf when I started out. As I got better the critics started saying things like, ‘How do you plan on making a living out of golf with a swing like that?’ But luckily I didn’t listen too much. Fortunately I have a little bit of the water-off-a-duck’s-back attitude.”

Given how savagely dominant he has been in the Rise Up Series, there is no need for Van Tonder to change anything. It may be cruel the way he is depriving all the other struggling pros a share of the big prizemoney at the moment, but they can hopefully lift their own games to provide fierce competition in this final event.

George Coetzee is once again atop the leaderboard at Pretoria Country Club after shooting a five-under-par 67 in the first round of the Titleist Championship on Wednesday, but the seasoned pro of 13-and-a-half years’ standing was joined later in the day on the same score by rookie Hennie O’Kennedy.

The 34-year-old Coetzee has been winning tournaments at Pretoria Country Club since he was 10 years old and won two of his four European Tour titles here  – the Tshwane Opens of 2015 and 2018. And his bogey-free round on Wednesday put him one ahead of another rookie in Clayton Mansfield and two ahead of Sunshine Tour stalwarts Jaco Ahlers and Merrick Bremner.

But Coetzee warned that the fact he feels right at home on the parklands layout is no guarantee of ultimate success.

“It’s nice to be back here on a golf course I’m very comfortable on. I played with Ulrich van den Berg [74] today and he said to me, ‘You just know where to go here’, and after the round I thought, ‘Ja, I kind of do know where to go on this golf course’. If you play well and you’re in a good space, it helps.

“But there’s no such thing as a gimme in golf. If that was the case I would’ve won every tournament I’ve played at Pretoria Country Club, and I obviously haven’t. But it’s nice to finally get my first bogey-free round in tournament golf post-Lockdown, I haven’t expected much and I didn’t deliver much in the Series so far. It’s nice to finally post a decent number,” Coetzee said.

The Titleist Championship is the third 54-hole event of the Rise Up Series, a five-event schedule that represents the rising up of professional golf on many fronts, and O’Kennedy is one of several new faces marketing themselves as the potential future stars of South African golf.

O’Kennedy turned pro last year and enjoyed an excellent campaign on the Big Easy Tour, winning at Crown Mines and enjoying four other top-10 finishes. On Wednesday, as he celebrated his 24th birthday, O’Kennedy collected seven birdies and dropped just one shot on each of the nines in just his third Sunshine Tour event.

“It was a lovely birthday present and shooting in the 60s is always nice, it means there’s a bit less pressure in terms of making the cut. It was quite nice conditions today, not hot and not windy, although the cold weather meant we had to work on an extra three metres for every shot.

“I guess I am a big-hitter and that gave me a slight advantage in that I had short-irons coming in to the par-fives. But the layout of this course is so good, especially the par-fours, that you have to really think about your tee-shot. You can’t just take Driver everyhwere and you need to keep out of the bunkers.

“I think my round today showed that the Big Easy Tour is a great stepping-stone and preparation for the Sunshine Tour. The cut is often 30 players or less, which pepares you better because you’ve got to shoot low. Now I’m going to go home and rest and have some cake. I’ll stay away fom the beer until the tournament is done,” O’Kennedy, who hails from Stellenbosch Golf Club, said.