Ken Borland

JOHANNESBURG, Gauteng (21 October) – Rupert Kaminski and Riekus Nortje both birdied the par-five 18^th hole to roar into a share of the lead in the first round of the Blair Atholl Championship delivered by The Courier Guy on Thursday.

The Johannesburg-based pair were both off in Group 4 from the first tee and both shot six-under-par 66s to lead Heinrich Bruiners by one stroke in the R1.25 million event.

While Nortje is a relative veteran in his eighth season on the Sunshine Tour, the 25-year-old Kaminski only earned his card in 2019.

And Kaminski actually birdied the par-three 17^th as well, having overcome the frustration of a double-bogey five on the short eighth hole.

The Parkview golfer three-putted from 15 feet after missing the green right and chipping too firmly.

The short stick has been a problem for him lately, but on Thursday it was a rare mis-step on a day when he generally putted superbly.

“The putter was behaving really nicely and I made a lot of birdie putts. The challenge with the Blair Atholl course is that we don’t often play on a course this long,” Kaminski said. “So the par-fives are not necessarily the holes you’re going to score on, so my nine birdies were mostly because of my putter.

“I didn’t hit the ball that great, but I managed my game nicely and hit the ball in the right spots. Game-management is very important here because if you go for the flags and push too hard, you can find yourself in very awkward situations.

“I’ve been playing really nice golf the last two/three months and a low score has been there, but I’ve struggled with my putter. So today will give me a lot of confidence, although the three-putt on eight was really annoying,” Kaminski said.

At 7527 metres long, the Gary Player designed Blair Atholl Golf and Equestrian Estate is a unique challenge when it comes to Highveld courses but Bruiners, the talented 34-year-old from Fancourt, also stamped his mark on the day with his bogey-free 67.

For spectacular finishes though, nothing could beat Kyle Barker.

Blair Atholl is also unusual in that the front ‘nine’ is actually just eight holes and Barker, who started his round on the ninth, aced the 178m par-three with an eight-iron to catapult himself to four-under-par and a share of fourth place with Jared Harvey, Trevor Fisher Jnr, Chris Cannon, Hayden Griffiths and Anton Haig.

Scores – https://sunshinetour.com/report/?tourn=BACH&season=221S&report=tmdraw~season=221S~round=1~#/home

Connacht, aided by the wind at their backs, broke free in the second half of their United Rugby Championship match against the Bulls at The SportsGround in Galway to turn a 10-7 halftime lead into a thumping 34-7 win on Friday night.

While the Bulls certainly rattled the home side in the first half, scoring first and causing their defence many anxious moments, their inability to adapt at the breakdowns and their inaccuracy in that key department gave Connacht too much free turnover ball and the Irish side were slick in capitalising. The Bulls were too quick to go off their feet at the rucks and were heavily penalised.

“We had enough chances in the first half and in the second half we were up against it because they understand how to play here with the wind pumping and the rain coming down, we struggled to get up the hill, there’s a significant rise and a slope down there in the corner where we got trapped,” Bulls coach Jake White said after the game.

“But we’ve got to adapt, there were a couple of calls that went against us, they had the rub of the green like winning a vital toss in cricket, but we turned ball over in our own half.

“It’s all about learning how to adapt to another environment, it’s as simple as that. The reality is we were not good in conditions that did not suit us, we weren’t accurate, we lost a lot of ball at the back of rucks.

“We’re away from home and we just have to learn and find a way to win. You could see the spring in Connacht’s step when they were 10-7 up at halftime and they knew we had not done enough in the first half,” White said.

Frustrated by how often they were penalised at the attacking breakdown, the Bulls called into service the box-kick in the second half, but that did not go well as Connacht counter-attacked superbly through elusive wing Mack Hansen and powerhouse inside centre Tom Daly.

A dreadful basic error early in the second half by scrumhalf Zak Burger at the base of a scrum put Connacht immediately on attack and Daly muscled over for a try. But the killer blow came in the 49^th minute when Hansen scored off a kick with a brilliant mazy run. There was a hint of obstruction in the try, but the officials allowed it to stand after watching replays, having ruled out a Connacht try in the first half for a marginal forward pass.

“Marcell Coetzee did ask the referee and some might argue that Lizo Gqoboka was obstructed. But we don’t want to be box-kicking and giving the ball away.

“We’ve got to find other ways to score points and not just rely on that and getting calls at scrums and mauls. But it’s so tough over here and at times we played really well, but our decision-making and accuracy needs to be better, especially on our carries and at the breakdown,” White said.

Scorers

Connacht – Tries: Tiernan O’ Halloran, Tom Daly (2), Mack Hansen, Tom Farrell. Conversions: Jack Carty (3). Penalty: Carty.

Bulls – Try: Lizo Gqoboka. Conversion: Johan Goosen.

GQEBERHA, Eastern Cape – Malcolm Mitchell dared to take Driver on a dozen holes on Friday in the second round of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series at Humewood Golf Club and quickly reaped the rewards as he raced up the leaderboard with a five-under-par 67 lifting him into a share of the lead heading into Saturday’s final round.

The wind was still up on Friday but Mitchell dropped just one stroke on his way to a total of four-under-par after the first two rounds, tied with 27-year-old Richard Joubert and veteran Hennie Otto.

Collecting six birdies, three on each loop, suggests an aggressive approach by the former Eisenhower Cup representative, but apart from backing himself with Driver, Mitchell felt his strategy was pretty risk-free.

“The two parts of my game that have been good for a while have been my driving and putting, which really helps on a links course. There were only two holes where I did not take Driver, but I’ve only missed four or five fairways on the first two days, so I’ve pretty much always been in a good position and my putting has been very good over the last while.

“In terms of being aggressive, in the moment there might be one shot that I might feel I can have a go at, but then there are others where I’ll aim 20 feet right or short. So I don’t go at it too much, I don’t change game-plans and I just try to stay in the moment and enjoy it,” Mitchell said after his round.

And being focused on the present and having fun is exactly what Mitchell will be doing in the final round, having learnt some lessons from his runners-up finish in August in the SunBet Challenge at Wingate Park Country Club in Pretoria. In that tournament he also went low in the second round, a 65 lifting him to second, but then he closed with a 72 to leave him three adrift of Estiaan Conradie.

“It’s funny how life teaches you different things. You work so hard to stay in the present but then sometimes you mess it up and get ahead of yourself or start thinking of the past. But winning three times in 2019 always sits there. Those memories are there to go back on, they can only help. It means I’ve been there, even though it was the Big Easy Tour, and knowing how to win definitely sticks in the back of your mind,” Mitchell said.

One man who is unlikely to have any trembling knees if he stays in contention on Saturday is Otto, because he has done it all before with 13 wins on the Sunshine Tour, the most recent being at the Sibaya Challenge in October 2019. The 45-year-old also finished in a tie for second in the Vodacom Origins of Golf event at Sishen at the end of August.

Otto has had a run of four successive top-30 finishes on tour and the former SA Open champion was looking dangerous as he fired a four-under-par 68 on Friday.

Joubert was just one stroke off the lead after the first round and, starting on the 10^th, he soared into the lead with an eagle on the par-five 11^th and then holed out for an eagle-two at the par-four 16^th. Bogeys at 17 and 18 undid some of that amazing work though, and he dropped two more shots on the front nine, but finishing with three straight pars gave him a 71 and he is far from done-and-dusted in this race.

Overnight leader Tristen Strydom shot a 73 on Friday and is one stroke back on three-under for the tournament, alongside Michael Palmer (68) and Daniel Greene (69).

There are three golfers two shots back on two-under-par who will need to be watched carefully as well – Christiaan Basson (68), Jean Hugo, who fired a brilliant 66, and Jayden Schaper (69).

GQEBERHA, Eastern Cape – Tristen Strydom, the 24-year-old from Pretoria Country Club, has been able to supplement his undoubted talent with confidence from a fine season and astute course-management, and the benefits showed as he claimed the lead after the first round of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series event at Humewood Golf Club on Thursday.

In incredibly tough conditions of strong wind and then rain, Strydom fired a superb four-under-par 68 to lead by one stroke from Richard Joubert.

The weather had already turned foul in Gqeberha on the eve of the tournament, so the golfers were expecting the worst when they teed it up at the famous old links course, that was especially wind-blown on Thursday.

Strydom and Joubert were together in the first group off and Strydom did not make a good start, missing a short putt for bogey on the first. But, remarkably, it was to be his only dropped shot on the day as he showed great composure to refuse to get flustered.

“We knew on Wednesday already that it was going to be pretty bad weather, so I was mentally prepared and just tried to enjoy it as much as possible, just do the best you can. Normally when you’re first out there is less wind, but today it was pumping from the early hours. It was a three or four club wind the whole day, I was hitting eight-irons 110 metres.

“I actually hit two great shots on the first, chipped but then two-putted because I missed a really short putt. But in conditions like this you can’t get upset by a bogey on the first hole otherwise you’re just going to make it a much longer day, which doesn’t help,” Strydom said.

The in-form Strydom, 10^th on the Order of Merit, turned in one-under with birdies on the par-four fourth and par-five seventh hole, before finding another gear on the back nine as he collected three birdies, which he says were products of his good course-management.

“Richard Joubert was playing really nicely as well so we pushed each other. It was a really solid round, a good day at the office. I didn’t really hit anything wayward, I made sure I was in good positions and missed on the right sides. All-in-all it was a well-managed round. And luckily I got out dry because it only started raining on my last hole!” Strydom said.

Joubert, coming off three successive missed cuts, was one over through nine holes, but finished in scintillating fashion with three birdies and an eagle, on the 17^th, in his last six holes.

Botswana’s Stuart Smith celebrated his country’s Independence Day by shooting a two-under 70 that gave him third place on his own, while James Kamte and Jake Redman were the only other golfers under-par after positing 71s.