Ken Borland

IRENE, City of Tshwane – Sunshine Tour rookie Ryan van Velzen roared to a marvellous eight-under-par 64 at Irene Country Club on Friday to claim a one-stroke lead after the first round of the KitKat Group ProAm, the R1 million tournament being held for the second time after flooding washed out the tournament in February.

The 21-year-old Van Velzen, playing just his fifth Sunshine Tour event, was particularly rampant on the par-fours, picking up six of his eight birdies there, to go with birdies on the par-five 10^th and 17^th holes. It was also a bogey-free round for the Benoni golfer, who won his card from the Big Easy Tour in January.

“I’m really happy and I played really nicely, hitting the ball good and close and making the putts,” Van Velzen said after racing past his previous best Tour round of 68.

“I drove the ball straight most of the day, I didn’t miss many fairways and my iron play was really good. I was surprised how good the greens were after all the rain and flooding earlier in the year.

“The course is in really good shape and you have to hit it straight off the tee because of all the trees. And the greens were pretty quick so you didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the hole,” Van Velzen said.

The former GolfRSA squad member was on the right side of most things on Friday, including an extraordinary tussle for top spot on the leaderboard that he eventually won.

Dylan Mostert finished just one stroke back after a brilliant 65, converting a great start after he was three-under through five holes.

Merrick Bremner, Ockie Strydom and JJ Senekal made the early running with their five-under-par 67s, but endured the frustration of watching the leading duo sweep past them in the afternoon, as well as the in-form Louis Albertse, Malcolm Mitchell and Keagan Thomas, who all shot 66s.

Rourke van der Spuy, who drank from the champagne bottle a week ago when he won the SunBet Challenge hosted by Sun City, was also part of the bottleneck at the top as he started on the 10^th tee and moved to four-under-par after his birdie on the third hole. But the aggressive 32-year-old did not quite have the finish he intended as he then bogeyed the par-four sixth and made pars the rest of the way in to finish with a 69.

SUN CITY, North-West – Callum Mowat began with two birdies and just continued on that high as he shot a 67 to lead the SunBet Challenge hosted by Sun City after the first round on Wednesday, saying afterwards it was a round that “made me feel good about me”.

Mowat’s five-under-par score included just one bogey on the testing Gary Player Country Club layout and he came home in three-under 33. That gave him a one-stroke lead over Rourke van der Spuy on four-under, while MJ Viljoen and Harry Konig were tied for third after shooting 69s.

“I’ve been inside a deep hole and I needed to figure out how I felt about myself,” Mowat said. “It was nice to feel I belong out here and I am competitive, it was good to feel good about myself and where my game is trending. It made me feel good about me.

“I just tried to be aggressive, just let fly and stop trying to steer the ball around, let it run! The demanding thing about Gary Player Country Club is off the tee, but I was more aggressive than usual.

“That meant I could hit a lot more greens with shorter irons. My game-plan was to just get as far as possible off the tee, it worked well and then I just stuck to the plan,” the 30-year-old Mowat said. The Glendower golfer had not broken 70 yet in four rounds this season at the FBC Zimbabwe Open and the Sishen Classic.

The 27-year-old Viljoen looked like catching Mowat as he raced to four-under through 14 holes, but a weak finish saw him drop a shot at the par-four 18^th to finish two back on three-under.

Van der Spuy started his round with eight pars, but he caught fire around the turn with birdies on the ninth and 10^th holes, and he picked up further shots on the 13^th and 17^th holes in a bogey-free round.

Konig, hailing from Devon in England, is in his first season on the Sunshine Tour and he also dropped just one shot, making a four on the par-three 16^th, in his 69.

HARARE, Zimbabwe – Louis Albertse will remember with fondness the first three holes of the Royal Harare Golf Club as he birdied them all en route to a superb seven-under-par 65 and a one-stroke lead after the first round of the FBC Zimbabwe Open on Thursday.

The Dundee Golf Club representative also birdied holes five through seven, giving him a tremendous start of six birdies in his first seven holes. But the back nine of the parkland course In Zimbabwe’s capital did bite back a bit, with Albertse dropping shots at the 10th and 16th holes.

But the birdies also kept coming, with the 25-year-old making a four at the par-five 12th hole, a three at the 14th and then finishing in style with another birdie at the par-four 18th.

Herman Loubser, the winner of the Lombard Insurance Classic last weekend at Arabella, shot a 66 at nearby Chapman Golf Club, the other course being used for an historic tournament that unfortunately could not be played for the last three years,  to claim second place on the first day of one of the premier African tournaments on the Sunshine Tour schedule.

Keagan Thomas and Zambia’s Madalitso Muthiya were in third place, having shot five-under-par 67s at Royal Harare. The 121-year-old course was kinder to them on the back nine than it was to Albertse, with both Thomas and Muthiya coming home in just 33 strokes.

Albert Venter, Luca Filippi and Ryan van Velzen were all on four-under-par on a congested leaderboard, 34 golfers shooting under-par just to show how exciting our young talent is in Southern Africa.

Albertse challenged strongly at Arabella last weekend after shooting 66 in the first round, but his last two rounds (73, 75) did not work out quite as he had planned.

But he is obviously a young man building on the confidence of a groundbreaking 2021/22 season on the Sunshine Tour in which he finished in the top 50 on the Luno Order of Merit for the first time in

his career, including a maiden victory in the Vodacom Origins of Golf at Mount Edgecombe.

Thriston Lawrence must be tired of all his recent misfortune on the European tour and, even though he was in fine form on six-under-par on Thursday, even his great first round of the Joburg Open was then halted by an untimely thunderstorm at Randpark Golf Club.

Lawrence was in a share of the lead with Spain’s Angel Hidalgo on the ninth hole, his last, when play was suspended due to lightning at 5.05pm. Little more than half-an-hour later, the first round of the co-sanctioned event was officially called off for the day.

While frustrated that he couldn’t quite complete a morale-boosting round, the 24-year-old will be delighted with his consistent play after a nasty run of three successive missed cuts and a DQ in his last four European tour events.

Lawrence started on the 10^th at Firethorn and began birdie-bogey, but finished his opening round strongly with an eagle on the 14^th and a birdie on the par-three 17^th. The Mpumalanga product then birdied the par-five fourth hole, before the highlight of his round, holing his second for eagle on the sixth hole.

Hidalgo, playing on the main European tour for the first time, also started on the 10^th and a brilliant run of birdie-birdie-eagle from the 12^th saw him race to four-under-par after five holes. He dropped a shot on 15, but two more birdies on 16 and 18 undid the damage before the turn. Although the 23-year-old bogeyed the first, further birdies on the sixth and ninth holes gave him an excellent 65.

Englishman Ashley Chesters is alone in third on five-under-par 66 and seven golfers, including South African stars Dylan Frittelli and Zander Lombard, are on 67.

Frittelli is the obvious main threat to the leaders and the favourite of the bookmakers after the first round. He looked set for the lead when he raced to five-under-par with four holes to play, but the trickery of the par-three 17^th hole then tripped him up, a bogey-four dropping him back to four-under-par.

The likes of leading international competitors Shaun Norris (68), Ross Fisher (68) and Justin Harding (69) also enjoyed the opening day of the new DP World Tour season, but Wilco Nienaber and Brandon Stone battled to master the vagaries of the wind and shot level-par 71s.