Ken Borland

The Nedbank Golf Challenge enters its third round at the Gary Player Country Club on Saturday and, thus far, the scoring has not set the world alight.

In fact, it is Bernhard Langer, the 55-year-old leader of the Champions Challenge who has been the most impressive golfer thus far. The German’s nine-under-par tally after two rounds has given him a four-shot lead over Jay Haas in the concurrent tournament for senior golfers, but Langer is five shots better off than the NGC leader, Scotsman Paul Lawrie.

The secret to Langer’s success has been clear-thinking, wise strategy and successful execution that has seen him generally avoid the brutal rough which often waits just a couple of metres off the fairway.

Lawrie has followed a similar, conservative strategy and has recorded just two bogeys, one on each day, in 36 holes thus far.

“Experience has a lot to do with it, probably nobody has played this course as much as me – it’s my 16^th tournament here. I played well, just hitting fairways and greens, but it’s important to hit the ball in the right spot here,” Langer said.

While Langer, Haas and defending seniors champion Mark Calcavecchia have all enjoyed sub-par rounds on both days, the NGC regular pros have generally struggled, with no one really conquering the Gary Player Country Club.

The result has been a bunched leaderboard with first round leaders Bill Haas, the son of Jay, and Nicolas Colsaerts slipping back down the field on Friday.

Haas admitted he was surprised that it was the seniors who were playing the better golf on the same course at the same time, their only allowance being that their tees have been moved forward.

“I’m surprised the big names are not doing better. We’re probably driving the ball where they’re driving it, then they probably take one club less from there. But the thing about Bernhard is that he does not make many mental errors, he doesn’t give strokes away.

“Having forward tees is definitely an advantage on a couple of holes and nobody in our tournament gets close to the distance of those 12 golfers in the main event. But the situation is a little unusual right now,” Haas said.

But Langer, typically, is not allowing himself to get carried away, even though the Champions Challenge enters its final round on Saturday.

“Four strokes sounds like a lot, but there is still a lot of golf to be played and this course can grab you anywhere, every hole can get you, so I still have to play a solid final round of golf. If I keep swinging and rolling the ball the way I did today, then I should be okay,” Langer said.

The two-time Masters champion has certainly given a masterclass at Sun City, one that the regular pros have not been able to match. While Langer has shot 68-67, the best rounds in the NGC have been Friday’s 69s shot by Lawrie and Martin Kaymer.

Paul Lawrie emerged as the midway leader of the Nedbank Golf Challenge on Friday after another day of tough scoring at the Gary Player Country Club.

Lawrie shot a three-under-par 69 in the second round to move to four-under overall, a one-stroke lead over Germany’s Martin Kaymer, who matched the Scotsman’s 69 – the best two rounds of the day.

South Africans Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen are two strokes further back, in a tie for third on one-under-par with Italy’s Francesco Molinari and American Bill Haas.

But on a day in which the golfers continued to be agitated by a swirling wind and thick semi-rough, it was the consistent if conservative play of Lawrie and Kaymer that brought the greatest reward.

Lawrie played beautifully in the tough conditions, his only dropped shot coming on the par-four 15^th, and the 43-year-old was understandably content with his position midway through the $5 million tournament.

“I played nicely again. I struggled with the driver so I hit quite a few three-woods, which was a strong club for me today. I gave myself chances and I putted a lot better today.

“This course is demanding off the tee and you’ve got to be in play if you hope to go for the pins. It’s important to drive well, it’s pretty tough out there. The wind is swirling, chopping and changing, and it’s difficult to get your distance right,” Lawrie said.

But with no one being able to conquer Sun City’s famed course, the leaderboard is bunched and Kaymer said the weekend shootout was an appetizing prospect.

“There are eight golfers within five shots, so that’s quite nice. If you play good and a few putts drop, then you can shoot five or six-under, so nobody can relax,” Kaymer said.

Schwartzel struggled to find his best game but kept himself in contention by shooting a 71 that left him on one-under-par.

Oosthuizen joined him half-an-hour later with a birdie on the 18^th hole, while Haas needed an inward nine of just 33 shots to also finish in the tie for third.

Haas was the joint overnight leader with fellow NGC rookie Nicolas Colsaerts, but they both discovered just why a debutant has not won at Sun City since Mark McNulty in 1986.

Colsaerts, who shot a 70 on the first day, made a disastrous start to Friday’s second round with a double-bogey seven on the second hole and a triple-bogey at the par-four third hole, while Haas double-bogeyed the first and dropped further shots at the seventh and ninth holes, before fighting back well.

The long-hitting Belgian finished with a 78 and a tie for 10^th on four-over-par, eight shots off the pace.

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

A South African has not won the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City in five years, but the two firm home favourites, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel, both downplayed their chances at the Gary Player Country Club on Wednesday.

Schwartzel is the more familiar with the great course at Sun City and will be making his fourth appearance when the $5-million tournament tees off on Thursday.

But the 28-year-old’s form disappeared after a freak rib muscle tear in June and is only just showing signs of reappearing, leaving Schwartzel unsure of his chances.

Oosthuizen, meanwhile, began the year with victory in the African Open and added the Malaysian Open crown in April, but has failed to win since then, even a run of five successive top-10 finishes in recent weeks not entirely cheering him up.

The 30-year-old has also had to weather the disappointment of two playoff losses this year, including the heartbreak of just missing out on the Masters title won by Bubba Watson at Augusta.

Ranked number seven in the world, Oosthuizen is one of the hottest golfers on the planet right now, but he was surprisingly downbeat about his chances at Sun City.

“It’s been frustrating because I feel I’ve been playing better than my finishes. I guess I’m satisfied with the year overall, but disappointed that I lost twice in playoffs. I just haven’t been putting myself in good positions come Sunday.

“I always say I want three wins a season, I’ve got two, so to win here this weekend would end the year on a high,” Oosthuizen said on Wednesday.

Oosthuizen, whose previous appearance in the NGC was a last-place finish in 2010, expects two-time defending champion Lee Westwood to be his biggest obstacle, particularly since the Englishman can call his driver into service on most holes.

“I forgot how narrow the fairways are and how thick the kikuyu is. The rough is really thick all around the fairways and greens, because of the recent rain, so you have to drive straight or you’re going to struggle. The greens are running pure but the rain has made them a bit slow and you just have to adapt to the speed,” Oosthuizen said after his pro-am round on Wednesday.

“So you have to think that Lee Westwood’s name is going to be right up there. He has an amazing record around this course, he’s a world-class player and one of the best ball-strikers in the game.

“He drives the ball so straight and he has great iron play, so he gives himself so many opportunities for birdies. He’s able to take driver on a lot of holes where the rest of us take three-wood, that’s how confident he is with that club,” Oosthuizen said.

Schwartzel, born and raised in Gauteng, said he was actually not entirely comfortable on the 7162-metre Gary Player Country Club course.

“It’s always a fantastic week here and I’ve always loved the golf course, but it’s not really suited to my game. I’m a fader of the ball and you mostly see holes moving left-to-right here with the fairway slopes. So you need to draw the ball here to do well,” Schwartzel said.

The 2011 Masters champion’s main problem this year has been the changes to his swing caused by the rib injury he suffered at the U.S. Open.

“It was a bit of misfortune when I tore my intercostal – I don’t even know how it happened, I basically sat down and could hardly breathe – and it halted my pretty good form up till then.

“I came back two or three weeks early because I wanted to play in the Open, but I created some bad habits in my swing to play around the injury. That led to a lot of inconsistency and frustration.

“But for the last month-and-a-half, I’ve been pain-free and I’m getting the swing back to where it was. But it’s been a long process coming back from that injury and I’m not expecting anything this week. If I have a good week and play the way I know I can, then I’m easily capable of winning. But it’s too early to say what’s going to happen, even though things are definitely turning,” Schwartzel said.

Justin Rose was, like Schwartzel, born in Johannesburg, but the Englishman is now at home in all the great cities of the world having won four titles in America, five in Europe, two in South Africa and one each in Japan and Australia.

With the minimum of fuss, he has risen to number four in the world rankings – the best in the NGC field – and his recent form includes a brilliant 62, the low round of the tournament, in the final round of last weekend’s World Tour Championship in Dubai, where he finished second to world number one Rory McIlroy.

Westwood, Schwartzel and Oosthuizen will all have maximum respect for Rose and his ability to claim the spoils at Sun City, while they will also no doubt see former world number one Martin Kaymer as a threat.

Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts is likely to be a crowd favourite, with the spectators getting to see just how far he does smite the ball, but he will have to marry consistent accuracy to his tremendous power in order to win the title.

There is a third South African in the field in Garth Mulroy, who qualified by virtue of winning the 2011 Sunshine Tour Order of Merit, but it is difficult to see the world number 201 having the game to beat the rest of the field which also includes resurgent 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie.

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-11-29-nedbank-golf-challenge-preview-oosthuizen-and-schwartzel-edging-closer-to-form