Ken Borland

JOHANNESBURG, Gauteng (22 October) – “This is a very demanding golf course and you have to know where to miss,” comeback golfer Anton Haig said on Friday after he seized a share of the lead midway through the Blair Atholl Championship delivered by The Courier Guy.

This knowledge came in very handy for the 35-year-old golfer who is enjoying his second career on the Sunshine Tour, as he fired a three-under-par 69 to catch joint first-round leader Rupert Kaminski on seven-under-par.

Haig burst on to the scene in the mid-2000s and even won the lucrative Johnnie Walker Classic on the European Tour in 2007. But by 2011 he was taking a break from the game due to persistent back problems. But he returned to the Sunshine Tour in 2018 and the Johannesburg-based golfer has played the lengthy Blair Atholl Golf and Equestrian Estate course many times and he said this experience has proven invaluable.

“It’s a very demanding course, the fairways look quite wide but they’re not and the course is so long. You need to miss in the right spots and fortunately I’ve played a lot here so I know which side not to miss on. I know the back ledges and slopes better than most, which definitely helped,” Haig said after his impressive round.

Haig said his play from tee-to-green on Friday was excellent, but his putter, which was hot in the first round, went cold in the second round. He will try to get both aspects of his game working well on the weekend as he chases his first win on the Sunshine Tour since his comeback.

“The greens were really receptive after the rain came in in the morning – fortunately for just three or four holes – and I was hitting the ball really well. But I had 32 putts today after just 26 yesterday. So my ball-striking was really good today but my putting was a bit off.

“I’m definitely looking to score on the par-fives, but you have to really knuckle two shots to get on to some of them, four of the par-fives are more than 600 yards. So my length is a good advantage,” Haig said.

Kaminski, off in the afternoon in a fresh wind, shot a one-under-par 71 on Friday to go to seven-under for the tournament, while Riekus Nortje, who shared the lead with him after the first round, dropped two shots coming in to finish with a level-par 72.

That left Nortje tied for third with three other golfers – Heinrich Bruiners (71), Neil Schietekat, whose 68 included a double-bogey at the tough par-four 15^th, and Luke Brown (69).

Jayden Schaper produced the round of the day, a tremendous 65 which included an eagle three on the 606-yard fifth hole, to climb to five-under-par, sharing seventh with Kyle Barker (71).

GQEBERHA, Eastern Cape – The wind that has gusted through Humewood Golf Cub this week was joined by soaking rain on Wednesday to make for pretty miserable conditions in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series Pro-Am, but at least one golfer – Jacquin Hess – was able to apply the old Monty Python maxim and always look on the bright side.

While the locker-room was full of mutters about the unrelenting wind and the rain just making everything wet and uncomfortable, Hess may have been nodding sympathetically, but inside he is quite happy for the weather to turn foul for when the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series fourth leg tees off at Humewood on Thursday.

“The weather forecast is not looking good and everyone is complaining about it, but I’m actually smiling inside,” Hess said. “I prefer the conditions to be tough, it opens the field up, and most of my best finishes have been on the tough tracks. The more the wind blows, the better for me. Coming from Robertson, there’s always a three-club wind there, and I actually went home to practise a bit.

“This course is always good, I love the place and I was in the mix the last time I was here, so I have a good vibe. You have to play different shots here, keep it low and under the wind, it’s been a two-to-three club wind so far, but I’m comfy hitting my seven-iron from 130. So I’m in a good space mentally, it’s going to be difficult for everyone and sometimes you don’t realise that,” Hess said.

The 30-year-old has missed his last two cuts, at the Vodacom Origins of Golf Mount Edgecombe leg and the Sunshine Tor Invitational, but he is optimistic about the next few weeks on tour because tough courses are hosting the events and he feels like he is slamming it straight and just waiting to capitalise score-wise.

“My game is turning in the right direction and I’ve just got to give myself opportunities, take it one shot at a time. The next five weeks should suit my game because we have tournaments here at Humewood and places like the Wild Coast and Sun City, where I normally play well. You need to hit it straight and low at these places, which I’m doing, and I putted really well in the Pro-Am, even in the difficult wind.

“I saw playing with Alex Haindli when he won at Sishen that you just need to keep the ball in play and par is good. You need to have that sort of even temperament, like cricketers Jacques Kallis or Hashim Amla. You just need to go with the conditions. You need to be the calmest guy on the course,” Hess said.

Judging by the former SA Students golfer’s strong showing in the Pro-Am, Hess has no need to get anxious about what he will face over the next three days at Humewood.

For the third time this year the Springboks were involved in a Test match that was decided by a penalty at the death as they went down 17-19 to the All Blacks in Townsville on Saturday, coach Jacques Nienaber describing it as “swings and roundabouts”.

New Zealand fullback Jordie Barrett slotted a brilliant, angled, long-range penalty to deny the Springboks, who had enough front-foot ball in the closing stages to shut the All Blacks out, but instead tended to kick that possession away.

South Africa won the series against the British and Irish Lions through Morne Steyn’s fairytale penalty, but were then beaten two weeks ago by the Wallabies through a last-ditch kick by Quade Cooper, another comeback story for the ages.

Nienaber was philosophical about the heartbreaking loss that consigned the world champions to a third successive defeat and handed the Rugby Championship title to New Zealand.

“It was a proper Test match as you’d expect from No.1 versus No.2 and there were small margins. We each have our own DNA, but it is always physical and comes down to a couple of points. That’s the contest, it’s that tight and we expected that. Our game-plan worked, we had opportunities, and it went down to the wire, decided by a call here or a bounce of the ball there.

“Obviously we are hurting because we could have pulled the result out of the game, we were in position to do it. I thought it was an excellent effort and we deserved victory. We were in with a shot at the end and it comes down to small margins. But we won against the Lions like this and Australia did the same to us, so it’s swings and roundabouts,” Nienaber said after South Africa had lost a third successive game for the first time since 2016.

While the Springboks brought their old physicality, sheer mongrel and set-piece brilliance to the contest, the criticisms that they overdo the kicking game and are poor with ball in hand will return as they wasted front-foot ball when they were still in the lead in the closing stages by kicking it away. Bizarrely, up-and-unders were twice launched from the All Blacks’ 22, South Africa losing the resulting 50/50 contests when they had been in control of possession.

But Nienaber defended the decision-making of his halfbacks.

“We always say we must attack space, but we had 14 players in front of us in the line and only one at the back, so unfortunately there was not a lot of space. We want to create a one-on-one and you can do that with a passing game or with a kick. If you can create space through the air, or by running or passing, then you must attack there.

“If we had won this match then we wouldn’t be having these questions. We could have probably shown more composure at the back end of the game, finishing the match better when we were leading up to the 78^th minute springs to mind as something we could have done better. This is a very experienced side but we sill have a lot to learn as a group,” Nienaber said.

Being 1-0 down in a three-Test series, the Springboks know what they have to do in the coming week: they simply have to find a way to win the second Test against the British and Irish Lions next Saturday and coach Jacques Nienaber believes they are still capable of doing this.

“The series is definitely salvageable next weekend, we have to, there’s no other choice. The things that have been highlighted are definitely things we can sort out – our mauls, our kicking game and the aerial contest. We also need to step up at the breakdown and we had a big discussion about our discipline, it was sad that that was highlighted at halftime and then it wasn’t great in the second half,” Nienaber said.

Scrumhalf Faf de Klerk echoed his coach’s determination that the Springboks have the capacity to win the second Test, also in Cape Town, and level the series.

“It’s not ideal losing the first Test but there are still two to go and I’m sure we can pull it back. There are a lot of things to get right, but a few of the guys had not played rugby for a bit. In the first half we played really well, we got a lot of balls back from our kicking game, we were getting good outcomes. But in the second half the Lions got the loose balls in the aerial contest.

“The Lions are a quality side and the other challenge was that the guys that came off the bench for them are as good if not better that the players they replaced. Our discipline just slipped in the second half and if we could replay the first five minutes after halftime then the match would probably have had a different outcome. But we are a proud team and we will definitely make sure we rectify our mistakes,” De Klerk said.

Another area South Africa need to look at is their bench, which had surprisingly little impact, even though Nienaber denied they had adulterated the Springbok effort, saying he was “not disappointed in them”.

The starting front row of Ox Nche, Trevor Nyakane and Bongi Mbonambi had had an excellent first half, but they were replaced en masse at the start of the second half, which turned out to be a big mistake. Nche did express some surprise that he had been taken off, particularly since he had been standing up very well to highly-rated tighthead Tadhg Furlong in the scrums.

“I didn’t think the Bomb Squad would come on that early. We practise for a full game, that’s our fitness levels. But whatever the coaches feel is right is what we go with. I did my homework on Furlong because I knew how highly-rated he is. So I knew how he scrummed, I was prepared,” Nche said.