Ken Borland

Talented 19-year-old golfer Kiera Floyd is surely not far from her breakthrough Sunshine Ladies Tour victory given her recent form, and this week’s Absa Ladies Invitational being played at her home course of Serengeti Estates may just give her that extra edge that leads her to her first professional title.

Floyd has finished in the top-10 of her last two events, the Fidelity ADT Ladies Challenge and the Standard Bank Ladies Open, while she also contended strongly in the Dimension Data Ladies Pro-Am at Fancourt, before shooting 84 in the final round to finish tied-15^th.

And the good news for her is that the Serengeti layout is just her cup of tea. Floyd’s length and accuracy off the tee should see her prosper on the 5688m course.

“I’ve been playing Serengeti for many years and I’m really looking forward to this tournament. Serengeti has a lot of signature holes, which can make it a make-or-break situation. Just none of the holes are the same, there’s always something different thrown at you and usually a bunker in the way too,” Floyd says.

“It’s not a very open course, but it all depends on where you play it off the tee. It’s definitely not the same as the other courses we’ve played this season, for me it is special, I really like the layout and it has its own way of playing it.

“I’m feeling really confident, I’m playing really nicely at the moment. The course is a bit longer, which suits me because I am a long hitter. But I still have to play well, I can’t take things for granted just because it is my home course,” Floyd says.

The second-year pro has always quickly conquered the different levels of the game, and her maiden Sunshine Ladies Tour win cannot be far away judging by her previous achievements. Floyd won the Benoni Country Club Ladies Championship aged nine, she finished third in the Sunshine Ladies Tour’s Jabra Classic aged 14, and she won the South African Women’s Strokeplay Championship in 2022 before turning professional at the beginning of last year. She has already racked up six top-10 finishes on tour.

But on a course with so many different layers of difficulty, she has identified staying calm during the inevitable tough times as the key element of her game that needs to improve for her to make that next step into the winner’s circle as a professional.

“I’ve struggled a bit in the past events with keeping my head up if I make a bogey or a hole does not go well. I need to be more consistent, put both nines together. You need that consistency so if you start on a roll then you can keep it going. I need to stay patient to get the ‘W’, just work my way through the course and whatever happens, happens,” Floyd said.

Her contemporary Gabrielle Venter won the Standard Bank Ladies Open at Royal Cape Golf Club three weeks ago, giving Floyd a lot of confidence she can make it back-to-back South African winners when the Absa Ladies Invitational gets underway at Serengeti on Thursday.

But there will be other winners providing a stiff challenge in the R1.2 million event as well, such as seasoned champion Lee-Anne Pace, Germany’s Helen Kreuzer and India’s Tvesa Malik, already winners on tour this season, as well as strong South African challengers such as Stacy Bregman, Nicole Garcia and Cara Gorlei, and the consistent Alexandra Swayne from the U.S. Virgin Islands, who has not finished outside the top-14 yet this campaign.

Seeing how a couple of personnel options go and getting the players into peak form ahead of the T20 World Cup are the focus points for Proteas coach Mark Boucher as he leads the team to India for a T20 and ODI series that starts next Wednesday and ends on October 11.

It will be Boucher’s penultimate mission with the national team, after he decided to end his stint with the Proteas after the T20 World Cup that follows the India tour. Boucher will be becoming the Mumbai Indians head coach, but he did not want to talk about that, rather disingenuously saying contractual obligations to both CSA and his new IPL franchise prevented him from speaking about his move.

“It’s a massive tour for us, the tour before the big event, which is the World Cup. It will be very easy to keep the focus on that massive prize and I know the players are very focused too,” Boucher said.

“My personal decisions won’t hamper the players, I’m in this job for them and I will give 100% to them. I want to look at combinations, keep them in touch in terms of form and try get the confidence going.

“We hope to see a couple of options and give opportunities to players, albeit in Indian conditions. We know we will have to play a different brand in Australia, but I know we’ve got the players to push for a great outcome.

“We also don’t want to give away too many of our cards because India are in our World Cup pool as well. So don’t expect us to go at them with our full-frontal team,” Boucher said.

While the 45-year-old often comes across as a stern older brother type rather than a kind, gentle uncle, there is no doubt he backs his players. Whether that be “backing Temba Bavuma 100%” after his shock omission from the SA20 or pumping the tyres of a T20 squad that many see as dark horses for the World Cup title.

“We’ve been the most successful T20 side over the last 25-30 games and we have a lot of special players. I have full confidence that we have lots of ammunition, now it’s about getting the guys to go out and play and be world-beaters.

“We’ll try and get everyone involved and ready in India, there are three T20s and three ODIs to get the guys in form and fit. It’s a massive blow not having Rassie van der Dussen and his whole aura around the team.

“But we are fortunate to have lots of guys pushing for selection, the competition for places is massive. And we can compete in any conditions.

“The nice thing about being together for a long time is that we have continuity, but also some exciting new talent that doesn’t have the scars of the past,” Boucher said.

KHOLWANE, Eswatini – Jaco Prinsloo is an avid fisherman and his ‘catch’ on the par-fives at the Nkonyeni Lodge and Golf Estate was the major reason why he leads the FNB Eswatini Nkonyeni Challenge after the first round on Thursday.

If Prinsloo was a birdwatcher then he would have been equally thrilled with the two eagles and two birdies he bagged on the four par-fives on the bushveld golf course next to the Usutu River, making up the bulk of his gains in a seven-under-par 65 that left him top of the pile, two strokes ahead of Herman Loubser.

Prinsloo eagled the eighth and 15^th holes, while also collecting birdie fours on the fourth and 13^th holes. The 32-year-old’s other birdies came on the third and ninth holes, and he dropped just one shot, on the par-four fifth.

“I hit the ball pretty good today,” Prinsloo said. “I hit it really close for my one eagle and made a decent putt for the other. It was a case of really good putting today and good hitting, there were a couple of very good shots.

“The tour had a break of more than a month so it’s been a while since I played competitively and these are not the fastest greens, different to what we’re used to compared to winter in Johannesburg.

“It’s a new course for us because we’re used to playing at the Royal Swazi Sun, but Nkonyeni is an absolute beauty, really challenging but fun in the bushveld,” Prinsloo said.

Prinsloo is enjoying a solid season and is 15^th on the Luno Order of Merit, saying he feels he is “moving in the right direction” and needs to “keep doing what I’m doing”.

If the Serengeti Golf and Wildlife Estate representative can back up his 65 over the next two rounds then he will keep his challengers in the R1 million event mum.

Modderfontein’s Loubser is foremost among those, a marvellous run of four successive birdies around the turn leading him to a 67.

Ricky Hendler and young Kyle McClatchie are a stroke further back on four-under, while Jovan Rebula, Lyle Rowe, Clinton Grobler and CJ du Plessis are all on three-under-par.

Stand-in captain Keshav Maharaj leads South Africa into an ODI series against world champions England from Tuesday and he said on Monday that “For me it’s about picking up where Temba Bavuma left off, we know our strategy and philosophy as a team.”

Regular captain Bavuma will miss the entire England tour due to a torn tendon in his elbow, and the ODI fortunes of the Proteas will be watched with keen interest because it is the one format in which their performances have lagged a bit. Plus there is the unprecedented decision to forfeit three Super League World Cup qualifying matches in Australia next January.

These three ODIs in England are not part of the Super League, but they will be a good indicator of whether South Africa’s 50-over team is starting to come together with a World Cup next year.

“Relatively speaking, we have not done as well in ODIs,” Maharaj said, “but we have tried various methods and combinations and hopefully we have found our rhythm now.

“We have put in a lot of hard work in the last 12 months and hopefully we will see results now. This might not be part of the Super League, but we are still playing international cricket and representing our country.

“It’s an opportunity to play more together as a unit, and it is still an important series as we try and get those combinations right for when there are lots of important Super League points coming up.

“We are trying to build some confidence in the ODI unit, we have come a long way and this series is an opportunity to do something special as a team,” Maharaj said.

Forewarned is forearmed and hopefully the Proteas will not be shellshocked when the England batsmen launch their now trademark all-out assault on them from the start of their innings.

“England do have a very positive approach, and if conditions allow it then we can be more aggressive too. But it’s about being smart and doing what we can to negate their batting.

“England have a lot of all-rounders in their middle/lower order and they bat quite deep. We have to make sure we execute the basics, get our thinking right on the day and adapt very quickly to conditions,” Maharaj said.

The venue for the first ODI – Chester-le-Street – is in Durham, the capital of the north-east of England, and the last time the Proteas were here was in the 2019 World Cup when their pacemen cashed in on helpful conditions to bowl Sri Lanka out for 203 and win by nine wickets. It was one of their few good days in that tournament.

England will want to capitalise on the emotion of Ben Stokes, the hero of their World Cup triumph, playing his last ODI on his home ground, the Test captain having announced his retirement from the international 50-over format on Monday.