Ken Borland

The bizhub Highveld Lions and the Chevrolet Knights, the two winning teams from the first round, will meet from today in a Sunfoil Series match with the conditions in Potchefstroom promising to be much friendlier for the batsmen.

The formidable Lions pace quartet prospered at the Wanderers last weekend when they beat the Titans by 190 runs, but Temba Bavuma’s 84 was the highest score by their batsmen.

In Bloemfontein, the Knights beat the Warriors by 128 runs in an extraordinary game in which the home side recovered from 32 for eight to win.

Because of the batting-friendly conditions at Senwes Park in Potchefstroom, the Lions had lined up wrist-spinner Eddie Leie to come into the side but the plans were foiled when the 27-year-old sprained his groin in practice.

Left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso, fresh from his exploits with the national side, will therefore be playing and should be a major attraction along with SA U19 star Kagiso Rabada, recently named in the Proteas’ T20 squad.

Lions coach Geoffrey Toyana speculated in the build-up to the season that Rabada would be spared having to bowl on flat pitches, but the decision has now been made to put more responsibility on the young man’s shoulders.

“We’re still managing Kagiso, at the moment he’s not bowling much between games, but he’ll definitely play. Bowling on flat pitches is part of the process of growing up and when he gets to international cricket, all the pitches will look like Potch! It’s quite important that he learns the skills to bowl on those sort of surfaces,” Toyana told The Citizen yesterday.

Rilee Rossouw, who the Knights are heavily reliant on to lead the batting, is not available as he has just become a father for the first time, while Pite van Biljon is also on the injured list. They have rested their hopes on two of three all-rounders added to the squad – Obus Pienaar, Patrick Botha or wicketkeeper Tumelo Bodibe.

It will probably be a different story in Benoni, where both the Unlimited Titans and Chevrolet Warriors will be looking to bounce back from the blows they took in the opening round on a Willowmoore Park pitch that is often difficult for batting.

Henry Davids has been named in the Titans squad, but it remains to be seen whether he will play, having withdrawn from the team last weekend due to his lack of four-day form.

It will probably be a shootout between him and Qaasim Adams for the number four batting spot, while spinner Roelof van der Merwe and seamer Cobus Pienaar are probably competing for the all-rounder’s spot.

The Warriors will be without Wayne Parnell, the left-arm fast bowler having injured his shoulder in Bloemfontein.

Warriors captain Colin Ingram has spoken of the need for his team to adapt quickly to what the vagaries of the pitch may throw up, but the visitors will be confident they have the bowlers – both pacemen and spinners – to put the struggling Titans batting line-up under more pressure.

South Africa’s Richard Sterne and Germany’s Maximilian Kieffer signed for eight-under-par 63s on the West Course to lead the Joburg Open after the first round of the Sunshine Tour/European Tour co-sanctioned event at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club on Thursday.

Sterne, the 2008 champion, continued to prove that he is over the back problems that plagued him for two years as he produced a flawless round with six birdies and an eagle.

Kieffer, the 22-year-old who hails from former world number one Martin Kaymer’s home city of Dusseldorf, is a rookie on the European Tour after finishing 14th in the 2012 Challenge Tour, but he putted superbly to collect five birdies on the front nine and three coming in.

There were five golfers within the top 11 who opened the tournament on the tougher East Course, with Durbanite Bryce Easton leading the way with a seven-under-par 65 on the par-72 layout, while compatriots Jake Redman, Trevor Fisher Junior, Allan Versfeld and Tyrone Ferreira were on six-under.

American Peter Uihlein, the world’s number one amateur in 2010, Sweden’s Joakim Lagergren and South Africans Tyrone Mordt and MJ Daffue were the other golfers on six-under, having all played the par-71 West Course.

Espen Kofstad, the 2012 Challenge Tour order of merit winner, was tied for the lead on eight-under-par as he reached the 18th hole on the West Course, but found trouble off the tee and on the green to post a triple-bogey seven and slide back into a tie for 12th on five-under.

Sterne’s eagle came on the par-five 507-metre ninth hole when he chipped in from just short of the green and the Pretoria product said the key to his round was minimising mistakes.

“Some days it feels good and everything just kind of happens. Golf is strange – you’ve got to hit the right kind of shots at the right time.

I’ve been minimising the mistakes and I hit 17 greens [in regulation] today, so I was never really in trouble at all,” Sterne said.

Fisher, voted the Sunshine Tour’s Players’ Player of the Year earlier this week, had the most topsy-turvy round of the frontrunners, with eight birdies and two bogeys and he admitted afterwards that he was struggling with nerves and the sense of expectation that came with the award.

For Easton, the highlight of his superb round was a hole-in-one on the par-three 12th hole, the first of his career, and worth about R100 000 of free accommodation from the Hilton Hotel for the 25-year-old.

Easton, who won twice on the Sunshine Tour last year, said he was looking for more consistency in the co-sanctioned events.

“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.

Two-time champion Charl Schwartzel was purring along nicely on the East Course as he posted a four-under-par 68, leaving him tied for 25th alongside George Coetzee, who played the West Course.

But defending champion Branden Grace, playing in the same three-ball as Schwartzel, could only manage a level-par 72.

American rookie Bill Haas was building a significant lead during his first round at the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City on Thursday, but two bogeys in his last three holes saw the leaderboard concertina on a gruelling day at the Gary Player Country Club.

With a tricky, shifting breeze blowing around the Pilanesberg valleys and brutal semi-rough waiting to punish anything slightly off line, Haas showed he had the stomach for the fight.

The 30-year-old son of distinguished American golfer Jay Haas, who is also at Sun City playing in the Champions Challenge for the seniors, Bill Haas had two loops of 35 for a two-under-par 70 that left him level with Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts at the top of the leaderboard.

Colsaerts, an extraordinarily long hitter who reined himself in on Thursday, had the most consistent round of the day with just one bogey, and he closed the gap on Haas with birdies on the 10^th and 11^th holes.

South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen, Scotsman Paul Lawrie and England’s Lee Westwood are on their coat-tails on one-under-par, while Francesco Molinari, Martin Kaymer, Peter Hanson, Charl Schwartzel and Carl Pettersson are all on par.

With the intense heat only adding to the discomfort, it was a day for intestinal fortitude rather than flashy golf.

And Haas had approached the last three holes well-pleased with himself as he sat on four-under-par, leading by two.

“I’d done well to get to four under, there was a bit of breeze out there, the wind showed its teeth today after being pretty docile before. It’s a good, tough course, and you had to drive it in the fairway because the rough just seems so much more penal here. Other than the finish, I took a lot out of my round,” Haas said.

And part of the Gary Player Country Club’s brutality was that the moment a golfer relaxed and thought he was cruising, the course bit back. With a vengeance.

“The 15^th is one of the tougher driving holes, but I hit driver and a wedge to six feet for birdie, so maybe I was too confident and I pulled my drive on 16,” Haas said.

That led to his first bogey since the third hole and then, on the 18th, his tee shot found the left rough. His second then found more rough just short of the greenside bunker. Haas was unable to chip on to the green at the first attempt and his second chip rolled 10 feet past the hole.

“I was very happy to make that putt for bogey! But if I’d hit it into the bunker in the first place, I’d probably have made four,” Haas complained.

Justin Rose, the highest-ranked golfer in the field, was another who paid the price for getting ahead of himself as he ended the first day second-from-bottom after a 73.

Having surged up the leaderboard with successive birdies on the par-fives around the turn, he then bogeyed the 11^th, 12^th and 13^th holes. His troubles started on the dogleg par-four 11^th when he tried to take the “Tiger-line” over the trees on the left, came up short and landed behind a tree. His second rebounded off the tree, going 40 metres backwards, and his fall from grace had begun.

Colsaerts turned 30 two weeks ago but has had the life experience to make him a font of wisdom. An immensely talented golfer who won his European Tour card when he was just 18, the party scene derailed his career for a few years before he began to fulfil his promise.

“I feel like I’ve led a few different lives,” he is quoted as saying by the official tournament brochure.

A top-20 finish in the Race to Dubai in 2011 was followed by victory in the World Matchplay Championship and a place in Europe’s Ryder Cup team, Colsaerts playing a key role in their triumph.

Being able to quite literally “drive for show” also carries its temptations, but Colsaerts showed admirable maturity on Thursday.

“I didn’t use a very aggressive game plan, even with the driver when I used it. I think I played like everyone else, hitting the same spots, because you were better off hitting an iron from the fairway than a lob-wedge out of the kikuyu rough. I probably played close to my best in terms of management off the tee,” Colsaerts said.

Oosthuizen, sporting a Movember moustache that would surely be the pride of Bloemfontein, was the most impressive of the South Africans with a perfect back nine that included birdies on the 10^th and 18^th holes.

It could have been a totally different story for South Africa’s highest ranked golfer as he followed up a birdie on the par-five second hole with three bogeys, before settling himself with a brilliant birdie on the par-four eighth.

Ten golfers finishing within two shots of the lead told the story of a day when no one was able to conquer a course that takes sadistic delight in exposing and magnifying the smallest of errors.

Which is perfect for what is billed as “Africa’s Major” – what is still, for the time being, the most lucrative tournament on the toughest continent in the world.

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-11-30-nedbank-challenge-its-africas-major-make-no-mistake