Ken Borland

Branden Grace passed a long Saturday on the Gary Player Country Club course by bantering with his caddy and not letting his cold putter get to him, and his relaxed approach worked as he will go into the final round of the Nedbank Golf Challenge just one stroke off the lead.

Due to the torrential rain on Friday, Grace had to complete 11 holes of his second round on Saturday morning, birdieing the ninth hole and then four of the first five holes on the back nine to rapidly climb the leaderboard. Although he struck the ball beautifully in the third round on Saturday afternoon, he only made two birdies and had to settle for a one-under 71. But it worked in terms of consolidating his position, and he and fellow South African Thriston Lawrence will start Sunday’s final round just one behind Thomas Detry and Rasmus Hojgaard.

“I feel good and I’m hitting the ball really good, probably as well as I have ever hit it around here,” Grace, the 2017 Nedbank Golf Challenge champion, said. “But I just could not get the pace of the greens.

“Every putt was probably a foot out, and it was probably because there was a bit of drizzle every now and then on the greens. But I will keep the same process in the final round.

“I have a mate on the bag and we talked a lot of nonsense out there, but sometimes taking your mind off the golf puts your head in a good space. Like when I won here, I’ll just try and go bogey-free in the final round.

“There’s always someone who comes out with a six or seven-under score, but if I can shoot five or six-under then I will definitely have a shout. But there’s no pressure on me, I’ve won it before and I’m just enjoying life and my golf,” Grace said.

It is little wonder that the 34-year-old is relaxed because he took away R304 028 130 from the six LIV Golf events he completed.

Lawrence was another who walked away from the Gary Player Country Club on Saturday evening extremely satisfied with his work, a seven-under-par 65 which was the best score of the third round. Beginning on the 10^th, he had a birdie-bogey start, but then reeled off three successive birdies from the 13^th hole. He gained back-to-back shots on the 18^th and first holes, and then capped an outstanding round with birdies on the sixth and ninth holes.

“From the first round, my tee-to-green play has probably been my best all year, but my putter just wasn’t there,” Lawrence said. “But I stayed calm and patient and started to sink a few putts today.

“It was probably my best ever round on this course, and I couldn’t have asked for better than to be a shot back in my first time playing the Nedbank Golf Challenge. So it is exciting times,” Lawrence said.

The Sharks, who had a bye on the opening weekend, get Round 2 of the United Rugby Championship underway as they take on Zebre in Parma on Friday night at 6.30pm, starting an overseas tour that coach Sean Everitt says will have passed muster if they can gather 10 points from the three matches.

After taking on Zebre, who gave powerful Leinster an almighty battle last weekend, the Sharks play Welsh side Dragons at Rodney Parade, before ending their tour in Dublin against Leinster. Not many teams beat the Irish giants at home, so Everitt is clearly targeting wins in their first two games and a couple of bonus points along the way.

“Zebre have a new coaching staff and are very attack-minded now. They did very well against Leinster and we are very wary of them,” Everitt said. “We obviously have certain things from last season we need to work on.

“We have sorted out our problems and we are a bit more aware now of what to expect, but we will be playing against teams with their full international complement.

“We know the breakdown will be unforgiving and that has been a focus of ours, and also being able to execute from set-piece.

“The goal is to come home with 10 points. The log was really jammed at the top last season, just one to three points separating the teams at the top, so bonus points are crucial,” Everitt said.

Captain Thomas du Toit was impressed with how the Zebre forwards stood up to the strong Leinster pack.

“They matched Leinster’s scrum very well, they have a lot of plays off their lineout and they are a good mauling side. We’re excited for the challenge, Zebre are obviously a new-look team and that makes them a bit unpredictable. But we are very well prepared,” tighthead prop Du Toit said.

The other matches involving South African sides this weekend see Edinburgh, who made short work of the Dragons last weekend, travel to Loftus Versfeld to take on the Bulls, who narrowly failed to win the URC crown last season, on Saturday at 2.30pm.

The defending champion Stormers open their campaign against Connacht, who beat them by a short head in Galway in February, in Stellenbosch on Saturday afternoon (2.30pm), while the Lions, who competed hard but ultimately fell short against the Bulls last weekend, have travelled to Swansea to take on the Ospreys at 7.35pm in the evening.

Not for the first time this season, the Sharks passed their test in terms of determination and effort, but failed when it came to execution and taking chances, their 24-21 defeat at the hands of Ulster allowing the Bulls to overtake them on the final United Rugby Championship log and snatch a home quarterfinal.

And, with the Sharks finishing fifth and the Bulls’ fourth, it means the KwaZulu-Natalians will have to travel to Pretoria to take on the Currie Cup champions at Loftus Versfeld on the weekend of June 4 to try and keep their URC hopes alive.

Given what was at stake in Belfast, it was a poor display by the Sharks. Soft defensive moments cost them in the first half as Ulster rattled up a 17-0 lead, and then, although they dominated most of the second half, the Sharks were not accurate enough to turn that into tries. Until the last five minutes, when they scored twice to lend respectability to the scoreline.

“The guys played with a lot of energy, they played their hearts out and I’m very proud of the guys for the courage they showed,” coach Sean Everitt said. “The way they fought back justifies that.

“But our first half was not great, our defence was not sharp enough and we gave Ulster two tries they really did not have to work for.

“The second half was a different story and we had opportunities. We played some really good rugby to get into good positions. But unfortunately we lost the breakdown battle, Ulster put a lot of pressure on us there and they defended really well.

“But we played some of the best ball-in-hand rugby we’ve produced this season, we had good territory and field position, and credit to the bench for the huge impact they made,” Everitt said.

It was always going to be a tough test playing one of the Irish powerhouses away, and the Sharks now need to find a way to win at Loftus Versfeld, where they have not enjoyed a good time in recent knockout matches.

“Coming to the Kingspan Stadium was tough, it’s not an easy ground to play at. Ulster are a big and physical side.

“Big lessons were learned, but we are still very disappointed, it was a game that got away from us. We could have … ,“ Everitt mused without finishing his sentence.

The Proteas have passed the test of their character and fighting spirit when put under pressure, especially after losing the first Test, coach Mark Boucher said after South Africa sealed an epic 2-1 series win over India in the third Test at Newlands on Friday.

Chasing a testing target of 212, South Africa won by seven wickets thanks to three successive half-century partnerships between Dean Elgar (30), man of the series Keegan Petersen (82), Rassie van der Dussen (41*) and Temba Bavuma (32*).

Having been beaten so thoroughly by the world’s No.1-ranked side in the first Test at Centurion, it was a remarkable comeback by a team that is still in transition.

“The team showed great character and fight, but that did not surprise me because Dean Elgar is a captain that leads from the front and Temba Bavuma too,” Boucher said after his biggest triumph as coach.

“That fight showed in Dean and Temba’s batting as well, so the guys will certainly follow that. When you have real fighters like that as leaders, then that will probably be the character of the team as well.

“This is a team that is on its own mission and it is a special, driven changeroom to be in. It’s fantastic that the results are starting to come in now. There were lots of ebbs and flows in the last two Tests.

“But we played those pressure moments pretty well and if we lost a session, we didn’t lose it too badly so we were still in the game. We are playing good pressure-cricket at the moment,” Boucher said.

As the new-look Test side’s most notable triumph, the players are going to take away enormous confidence and belief from what is one of the best results for South African cricket sine the return from isolation.

“It was a really hard-fought series, and certainly one of the best, top-five, we’ve ever had in South Africa,” Boucher said. “We lost all three tosses and lots of people wrote us off after the first day of the first Test.

“But we need to see this result through the perspective of where this team is and where India, probably the best team in the world, are. Our youngsters will take a lot of confidence from this.

“There’s nothing like winning games when you know you’ve had to play very, very hard Test cricket. But our feet are firmly on the ground and we know we are not the finished product.

“But from where this team has come from, in terms of the on and off-field stuff, they have been through a lot as a unit. But we have had solid chats and we are a close-knit group that has worked very hard,” Boucher said.