Ken Borland

ST FRANCIS BAY, Eastern Cape – George Coetzee says there is no magic recipe for winning golf, but the 13-time champion on the Sunshine Tour enjoyed more than a few ounces of inspiration on Saturday as a bogey-free 67 carried him back to the top of the leaderboard after the penultimate round of the PGA Championship at the St Francis Links.

Two birdies on the front nine and three coming in, two of them back-to-back on the 12^th and 13^th holes, lifted Coetzee to 11-under-par for the tournament and he is one stroke clear of Rhys West, who shot a 68.

Second-round leader Casey Jarvis posted a 71 on Saturday and is on nine-under-par, together with Stefan Wears-Taylor (67), Jake Redman (68) and Hennie Otto (69).

“It wasn’t really my plan to not get any bogeys, I just wanted to play good golf,” Coetzee said. “This course has some teeth and you have to pick those parts where you can be aggressive and where you can’t be aggressive.

“I think I balanced that out quite well, I made pars on the tough holes and birdies on some of the easier holes. Being experienced is more about what you do than what you know.

“But it does help that I am more conservative on a course that I don’t know that well, I kind of stick to how the course wants me to play.

“I think only Tiger Woods really knew how to win, the rest of us are all learning as we go along. I’ve won a few tournaments, but there’s no pattern to it, no magic recipe,” Coetzee said.

Overnight leader Jarvis had two eagles on the front nine, on the par-five third and then holing out with his second on the par-four fifth hole, but after a double-bogey six on the par-four 15^th he surrendered the lead to Coetzee.

There are also four golfers on seven-under-par who will be chasing after glory in the final round on Sunday – last week’s winner of the Vodacom Origins of Golf final Combrinck Smit (66), Luke Jerling (67), Peter Karmis (67) and Martin Vorster (71).

But after all the titles he has won, including the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series event at De Zalze in August, the 36-year-old Coetzee has clear aims for the final round.

“I will just be trying to make good decisions, try to play decent golf and be excited about playing under pressure,” Coetzee said.

BENONI, Gauteng – Jayden Schaper enjoyed an excellent day on his home course of Ebotse Links as all aspects of his game came through for him in a seven-under-par 65 that gave him a share of the lead with Clinton Grobler and Ockie Strydom after the first round of the Fortress Invitational on Friday.

The highly-promising Schaper began his round on the 10^th hole with a birdie, and followed that up with consecutive gains on the 12^th and 13^th holes. A marvellous outgoing nine holes was capped by birdies at the par-three 15^th and par-five 18^th, seeing him go to the turn in just 31 strokes.

Schaper picked up three more birdies in four holes from the fourth, and even a bogey at the par-three eighth could not put a damper on a superb round of golf.

“Playing on my home course is a bit of an advantage because I know where certain pins are, where to miss and which bunkers to avoid,” Schaper said after his best round of the Sunshine Tour season so far.

“But you’ve still got to hit the ball well, hit the shots and make the putts. In the last couple of weeks, my tee-to-green play has been solid and I’ve been slowly getting better on the greens too.

“Today I just played really solid golf, I made good decisions and hit some really good shots. I was consistent today,” Schaper said.

The return of long-time coach Grant Veenstra from the United States may also have played a role in the impressive showing, with Schaper saying “it was the first week I’ve seen him in the last couple of months and it was really good to have him back to help out.”

Grobler, the 28-year-old Krugersdorp golfer, also started on the 10^th and began the round with three straight birdies, while bogeying the 17^th and fourth holes on the way to his 65. The highlight of his round was his eagle-three on the 18^th.

The in-form Strydom, from the nearby Serengeti Estate, cruised through the front nine in four-under-par, but then the rollercoaster began: The 37-year-old bogeyed the par-four 10^th, then grabbed a hat-trick of birdies from the 12^th, dropped a shot at 17, but then finished spectacularly with an eagle on the last hole to vault into a share of the lead.

The leaderboard is congested, with five golfers shooting 66, including the veteran Hennie Otto, the American Dan Erickson, the amateur Kyle de Beer, as well as Makhetha Mazibuko and Richard Joubert.

Wynand Dingle, the winner of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series San Lameer event three weeks ago, is in the group on five-under-par.

CAPE ST FRANCIS, Eastern Cape – Heinrich Bruiners grew up in George, a little more than three hours along the N2 in a westerly direction from Cape St Francis, so a little bit of blustery wind is never going to give him grey hairs.

So although the wind almost reached 30km/h on the opening day of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series at the St Francis Links on Thursday, it was no bother for Bruiners as he cruised to a marvellous, bogey-free, seven-under-par 65 to claim a one-stroke lead after the first round.

Things became a little gory for the rest of the field though, with only 31 of the 83 golfers ending the first day under par. Bruiners’ nearest challengers are Serengeti’s Ockie Strydom (66), and American Brooklin Bailey and a pair of South Africans in Dylan Naidoo and Jaco Prinsloo on 67.

“It was a bit windy today, but not too bad, just one or two clubs. Growing up on the coast, I’ve played a lot of tournaments in these conditions. I tend to focus a bit better because you have to be a bit more specific, otherwise it’s so easy to make a mistake in the wind.

“But playing in the wind feels like a bit of an advantage for me, to be honest, and I have a lower ball-flight than most,” Bruiners said.

Apart from playing what he described as his “worst two rounds for the year” in the preceding pro-am event, Bruiners has felt that he has been playing good golf, but has committed the sin of not capitalising when it comes to his final score.

On Thursday he put that right with three birdies on his front nine as he went off on the 10^th and then four more on his back nine, including three-in-a-row from the fourth.

“I’m very happy because in the last while, I’ve been playing really well but I just didn’t end off rounds the way I would like. I made a good birdie on 11 today, which is quite a tough hole, so it was nice to get off to a good start.

“The next few holes were also downwind and I was glad I capitalised because I was thinking the wind was going to pick up. I hit two very good shots for birdies on the first and fourth holes.

“Then there were more holes into the wind coming in, but I tried to be aggressive. Last week I was in contention in the SunBet Challenge Wild Coast, but I became a bit defensive down the stretch. So I tried to be a bit more positive today.

“It ended up being a really solid round, no drops because I made a really nice putt for par on the seventh. It’s the first time in a while I’ve sunk a putt like that, so it meant a lot.

“In fact this must be one of my most memorable rounds. I’ve played a few good rounds, but this one I’ll remember,” a delighted Bruiners said.

Strydom also started on the 10^th and had a much slower start to his ascent up the leaderboard, being just one-under at the turn. The first three holes at St Francis Links are deceptive, but the 37-year-old birdied all three for a great start to his back nine. Strydom also picked up shots on the fifth, sixth and eighth holes for a top-class round of golf.

Bailey also made a leap up the leaderboard on the front nine, also collecting five birdies.

All Blacks coach Ian Foster seemed to burn with righteous indignation when he criticised the New Zealand media for a “vicious onslaught” against him, following his team’s pressure-relieving 35-23 victory over the Springboks at Ellis Park on Saturday evening.

Foster was widely expected to be fired if the All Blacks had suffered a second successive loss to South Africa, which would have been their sixth defeat in seven outings. But his All Blacks team showed glimpses of past glories as they stretched the Springboks out wide with a rapid offload game, won the breakdown battle, stood up well in the set-pieces and defended as if their lives depended on it.

“The stress has been good for me, I guess, I’ve lost one kilogramme,” Foster wryly observed. “It comes with the job but it has been a pretty vicious onslaught, particularly from the New Zealand media.

“Calling them popgun selections I feel is quite insulting to players who are giving their all for their country. But these times are the best test of character.

“I’m intensely proud of that performance. I could not be more proud, to do that at altitude with the game swinging around – there were times we could have won and times we could have lost.

“It was 0-0 for a long time and you could feel it was a real arm-wrestle, but that’s what South Africa are like here. You have to bide your time and we wanted to target the second half and tired legs with the way we wanted to play,” he said.

For the prudish, a Springboks versus All Blacks Test at Ellis Park could be one of the more grosser experiences: the crowd is almost baying for blood, coarse language flows freely and within the first 10 minutes there was a fight in the main grandstand.

But Foster, feeling vindicated, relished the occasion as the All Blacks produced their staple response to the pressures of playing in Johannesburg, notching their fifth win in their last six games there.

“It’s a pretty special occasion and the All Blacks versus Springboks rivalry often generates moments like this. I would like to thank South Africa for their contribution to this amazing spectacle,” Foster said.

“We are very proud to hang on to the Freedom Cup, it is very important to us. The performance today was the result of the last two-and-a-half weeks, this team has reformed and reshaped a bit.

“I saw the same character last week as well, but we did not get the bounce of the ball and did not play well enough. Sometimes a dramatic change just comes from playing more together.

“Long-terms success often starts with adversity. I said last week was our best performance of the year because I saw some signs of competitiveness. This game needs patience, which some people don’t have,” Foster said.