Ken Borland

Thriston Lawrence was still shaking with excitement and the release of nervous tension half-an-hour after being told he was the winner of the weather-disrupted Joburg Open at Randpark Golf Club on Saturday, giving the 24-year-old South African a life-changing first international title.

Saturday was meant to be the final round of the co-sanctioned tournament with the DP World (formerly European) Tour, after the organisers decided to cut the event to 54 holes due to the terrible weather and the turmoil caused by travel restrictions overseas due to the announcement of a new Covid variant discovered in South Africa.

But the thundershowers returned just after midday and did not let-up in time to avoid the tournament being called off at 3pm. With the second round first needing to be completed on Saturday morning, none of the 69 golfers who made the cut were able to complete their third round.

The final placings were therefore decided based on the completed second-round scores and Lawrence, who had bogeyed the first hole and parred the second just before play stopped, was declared the winner by virtue of his four-shot lead over Zander Lombard after back-to-back 65s.

“I’m still shaking and it hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Lawrence said after receiving the crystal trophy. “It’s always been a goal of mine to win on the European Tour, but I didn’t see it coming so quickly and you never think it would come out like this.

“But the whole week has been strange weather and my mentality was just to finish the tournament. It wasn’t nice waiting today because you hear a lot of talk about what might or might not happen.

“But I’m just thankful for the way it turned out, it’s a life-changing moment and a lot of things are going to change in my schedule. It’s an unbelievable feeling. Being me a week ago to now is two worlds apart.

“You want to see yourself up there winning tournaments, but there have been a lot of knocks in the last year-and-a-half and it’s been tough,” Lawrence said.

The winner of one previous Sunshine Tour event – the 2019 Vodacom Origins Stellenbosch – was a trifle disappointed to not have his winning moment on the 18^th green, but even that did not stop his perpetual smile.

“I would have liked to get the win on the 18^th, have a winning putt, so it was not the perfect way to finish,” Lawrence said.

“But I played unbelievable golf over the last two days to take a four-shot lead into the weekend.

“Then the tournament was cut short amid a lot of confusion. The weather prediction was actually fine for today with a zero percent chance of lightning. But that only lasted 45 minutes.

“But I just stayed patient and I will take a lot of confidence from this win. And I don’t have to worry about invites anymore,” the Nelspruit golfer said.

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.

No spectators are going to be allowed at Randpark Golf Club when the prestigious Joburg Open is held there from November 19-22, but there will be plenty of entertainment for golf fans at the club both before and after that with the installation of the new InRange ball-tracking facility at their driving range.

InRange is a system designed by engineers in Stellenbosch who were global leaders in the field of tracking technology for radio telescopes and radar, who turned their attention to tracking the flight of golf balls. The result is not only a package that is used by leading professionals, golf clubs and coaches, but which also has tremendous entertainment value.

Golfers previously going through the motions on the driving range can now track each and every shot and can play under added pressure in the system’s game mode that allows multiple players to compete against each other in contests such as Longest Drive or Bullseye. With four buckets of balls costing less than R400 for a foursome, this sounds like great fun for a group of golfing mates.

The technology is also available on an app, allowing individuals to enjoy the experience at a cheaper cost.

But for the weekend of November 19-22, Randpark will become a place of national importance and closed to the public as the European Tour and their top international golfers arrive to participate in the Joburg Open. As Randpark GC chief executive Francois Swart explained, they simply cannot risk any Covid transmission occurring, especially with South Africa hosting the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek and then the South African Open at Sun City on the following weekends.

“It’s very important that the safety protocols are adhered to and we have to manage the bubbles and ensure the safety of the players, not just for this tournament but for the next two as well. I think not having spectators is the better call and unfortunately not even our members will be allowed at the club. It’s the right call because it’s a big investment.

“The players are the ones who have the most risk and if any of them get exposed then they’re out for the rest of the tournaments as well. Not having spectators is normal practice at this time on the European Tour and they have had a lot of input because they have staged big tournaments already this year. They’ve given us valuable insights and I have all the confidence in the world that the Joburg Open will go off beautifully,” Swart told The Citizen.

The Joburg Open will return to being a standalone co-sanctioned tournament with the European Tour and will be held in a biosecure commune at Randpark Golf Club from November 19-22, the Sunshine Tour and the City of Joburg announced on Tuesday.

The Joburg Open was founded in 2007 and had one of the larger fields on the European Tour schedule, but in 2018 it was ‘nicked’ by the South African Open, with the two tournaments amalgamating into a 240-man mega-event hosted by Randpark’s two courses – Firethorn and Bushwillow. But now the events have been split again, with the SA Open due to be played after the Joburg Open, with Sunshine Tour commissioner Thomas Abt confirming it would not be held in Johannesburg this summer.

“The Joburg Open will have a field of 156 professionals, split between the Sunshine Tour and 70 from the European Tour, with everyone in a biobubble; golfers, caddies and essential staff will all be put in various local hotels and once in the bubble they cannot leave. They will have breakfast, lunch and dinner within the bubble. And they will be tested.

“They will be allowed to practise outside the bubble and there will be a pro-am, but all participants will need a negative Covid test before playing. There will be no spectators at the Joburg Open, but there will be a VIP facility in the Randpark clubhouse, which will be outside the bubble. These are some of the extensive safety measures in place, which includes isolation centres,” Abt said at Randpark on Tuesday.

The Joburg Open will be held the week after the Masters, but Abt is still hopeful that they will be able to get a top-class field for the co-sanctioned event.

“It’s impossible to know now what sort of regulations will be in place at the time of hosting the event, and we don’t have confirmation yet of which overseas players will be coming, but the European Tour have to fill those 70 spots and we have sent out a letter to our international golfing superstars requesting their support. There are no quarantine regulations in place, if a player has a Covid business visa and a negative test then he can arrive on the Monday and be in the tournament,” Abt said.

Hosting such an ambitious, massive event in this time of pandemic-induced change will put the tournament under the glare of public scrutiny, but City of Joburg executive mayor Geoffrey Makhubo stressed the benefits of putting on the tournament, which has prizemoney of R19.5 million, R2 million more than the SA Open held in January at the same venue.

“By separating this event from the SA Open, we will be able to promote the City of Joburg and mark our readiness to be open for tourism and business. Plus there are the potential new jobs the tournament will create. We recognise that Covid-19 is still a threat, but hosting the Joburg Open is an excellent opportunity to start returning to life as normal and golf has the green light from government.

“We want to save lives as well as livelihoods and the importance of golf to the tourism industry cannot be overstated. The tournament will also be staged in honour of struggle stalwart Andrew Mlangeni, who played in various Joburg Open pro-ams and attended as a guest several times. It is the first tournament we will host since he passed on,” Makhubo said.