Ken Borland

The South African Open came to a thrilling conclusion at a squelchy Gary Player Country Club on Sunday with Daniel van Tonder holding off Oliver Bekker to claim the title by one stroke with a dramatic 25-foot birdie putt on the 18^th hole.

Bekker and Van Tonder had been tied on nine-under-par, four strokes behind leader Justin Harding, at the end of the third round when it was completed on Sunday morning. While Van Tonder took control of proceedings with three birdies in four holes from the eighth to take a two-stroke lead, Bekker came with a late charge as he birdied the last three holes.

The seven-time Sunshine Tour winner was inches away from making eagle on the 18^th when his 60-foot putt stopped just next to the hole. By then, Van Tonder was in the middle of the final fairway and knew he had to make birdie to win.

More drama was to come though as Van Tonder’s approach only just cleared the water, stopping right next to the yellow markers. He then duffed his chip way short, leaving him with a 25-foot putt for birdie and the win. Fortunately, Hennie du Plessis had a similar birdie putt just before him, which he made to finish third on 12-under-par.

Treading gently is not something the 30-year-old from Boksburg does often and Van Tonder stepped up and nailed the slightly curving putt with confidence.

“All I was thinking was just make the thing, give it a chance. The whole day I had been leaving putts pin-high or lipping out, so I just had to make sure I hit it,” Van Tonder said after his great final round of 65.

“If it goes in, I win, if it stays out then I’m in a playoff. And when it went in I just thought ‘Finally!’.

While Bekker played some amazing golf, chipping in three times on Sunday (making it five for the week), Van Tonder played some tremendous shots of his own.

On the water-lined eighth hole he made a 20-foot birdie putt after having to hit his approach with a mud ball from the rough, and then on the 10^th he chipped in from the bank above the hole for another birdie. On the par-three 16^th, his superb tee-shot was right on course for the hole and he was left with a five-footer for birdie.

“I’ve been seven and nine shots behind and won, I just play my own game, which is looking for birdie putts. I’m not a bad player you know, I can catch anyone,” Van Tonder said with a twinkle in his eye as he clutched the magnificent SA Open trophy.

Van Tonder’s conquest of the South African Open and arguably the country’s best course ends an epic couple of years for the idiosyncratic golfer.

Van Tonder spent 2020 dominating the Sunshine Tour, then spent six months of this year competing on the European Tour, where he won the Kenya Savannah Classic and finished 75^th on the order of merit.

And now he is a South African Open champion.

“I’m very happy. It’s been a long, hard year, having to stay overseas for six months because of Covid. But I love this place, I love playing here and the SA Open is the special one, the second oldest tournament.

“So it’s a big thing to win. It means a lot. Watching others win it has looked so awesome, but now I can walk around and say I’m an SA Open champion,” Van Tonder said.

While the Boksburg golfer generally played extremely well in all four rounds, his 16-under-par total of 272 coming from rounds of 69 68 70 and 65, perhaps his most impressive characteristic was the steel he showed when under pressure.

Bekker’s three-straight birdies to finish left Van Tonder needing a birdie to win, but his approach on the 18^th only just cleared the water. He then duffed his chip well short, leaving him with a daunting 25-foot putt to win.

Before those final-hole heroics, Van Tonder had managed to turn a mud-ball in the rough on the eighth, which many consider the toughest hole on which to keep your approach shot dry, into a 20-foot birdie and then chipped in for birdie from the bank above the 10^th hole.

“When I was young, I was not the longest hitter so I had to chip and putt well. My short game is still not too bad,” Van Tonder smiled. “My mindset is to attack, hit the fairways and greens and then make the putts.

“The other guys know I have a saying: ‘I can smell blood in the air’. This game is something else because I struggled last week at the Joburg Open and then this week I had my normal game.

“Playing overseas with the best in the world, with all that experience you see that their games are the same. There’s no difference, it’s just mindsets,” Van Tonder said.

And Van Tonder is clearly mentally prepared to deal with whatever hardships he encounters on the course.

JOHANNESBURG, Gauteng (24 October) – It took the near-perfect round for Luke Brown to win the Blair Atholl Championship delivered by The Courier Guy on Sunday and the 23-year-old duly produced a bogey-free 67 to claim his first Sunshine Tour title.

Two shots off the lead and having never won on the main tour before, Brown also had to conquer one of the longest courses in the world and multiple winners like Ulrich van den Berg, Trevor Fisher Junior and Neil Schietekat.

And a blustery, shifting wind was an added challenge.

But Brown showed remarkable composure and tremendous skill as he compiled one of the few bogey-free rounds all week and collected five birdies as well to finish on 12-under-par.

“They say your first one is the hardest to win and it was definitely very difficult today, but that was one of the best rounds of my life. It was breezy and difficult to choose the right club for these pin positions. But my ball-striking was amazing today, I hit all 18 greens in regulation, which is wonderful on the third longest course in the world.

“My putting was also solid and if you keep the bogeys off your card on an amazing course like this, then you’re going to be tough to beat. I definitely had to stay patient, you might feel like you should be making more birdies, but it’s not that easy on this course. I tried not to look at what the others were doing,” Brown said.

The leading three-ball of Trevor Fisher Junior, Ulrich van den Berg and Louis Albertse all birdied the par-five first hole, but they were then jerked back to reality as the rest of the final round became a struggle.

A double-bogey on the par-five seventh was a fatal blow for overnight leader Albertse, while Van den Berg double-bogeyed the par-four 12^th and dropped four more shots coming home in 43. Fisher Junior had three successive bogeys on the treacherous stretch of long par-fours from 14 to 16 and closed with a double-bogey 7 at the 18^th.

Schietekat was moving in the other direction, however, and birdies on the last two holes gave him a 67 and the clubhouse lead on 10-under-par.

Keagan Thomas fired a 69 to finish third on nine-under, while Anton Haig and Albertse tied for fourth on eight-under.

Thriston Lawrence shot a remarkable 64 to catapult into sixth place on seven-under.

But it was Johannesburg-based Brown who ended a popular winner by two strokes, having learnt the harsh lessons from the KitKat Championship at the start of the season when he squandered a five-shot lead in the final round.

“I was thinking about the KitKat Championship on the 17^th and I always wanted to get back into that position. The leaderboard swings up and down and it’s difficult to keep track of, so I’d rather not worry about that. From that experience I learnt to be more patient because I felt I should have won that one.

“I felt my game was close to getting back to that level in the last month, but I just focused on getting on the green and giving myself a chance at least. It shows how tough the Sunshine Tour is that it’s taken me so long to win when I’ve been playing well,” Brown said.

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

JOHANNESBURG, Gauteng (23 October) – Louis Albertse notched his first Sunshine Tour title five weeks ago at Mount Edgecombe and is in prime position to add a second on Sunday after a top-class round of six-under-par 66 gave him a one-stroke lead after three days of the Blair Atholl Championship on Saturday.

Albertse’s remarkable round on a blustery day on one of the longest courses on tour included a double-bogey on the par-three 17^th, when he found the large greenside bunker, but that was the sandwich in a pair of birdies on 16 and 18.

An eagle on the par-five fifth gave the winner of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series event at Mount Edgecombe some momentum and a pair of birdies took him to the turn on four-under for the day.

The 25-year-old from Dundee then birdied the next two holes as well, soaring up the leaderboard when the second-round frontrunners could not make much headway on a testing day.

“This is a long course, the wind was tricky and I didn’t always get it right, but tough conditions get me going and to shoot six-under was very pleasing,” Albertse said. “There are more scoring opportunities on the front, but the back nine is harder, there are a few really long par-fours and the wind got up. But I still played really nicely.

“It’s hard to get close when you’re hitting five or six irons in, so it helps when your putter gets hot and to have just 24 putts today was very nice.”

Anton Haig had three successive bogeys from the 15^th hole to shoot a level-par 72 and stay two shots back on seven-under, Rupert Kaminski also remaining on his second-round score.

Jayden Schaper was putting together a great round, six-under-par through 10 holes to take the lead, but the highly-rated youngster then suffered a meltdown, dropping five shots in the last four holes as he came home in 42, finishing the third round on five-under for the tournament.

Albertse is being pursued though by two hugely experienced golfers in Ulrich van den Berg and Trevor Fisher Junior, who are both just one stroke behind after shooting 68s on Saturday.

Van den Bergh is an eight-time winner on the Sunshine Tour, although it is more than seven years since he last took the honours, at Euphoria Golf Club, also in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series.

Fisher Junior is in a good run of form with four consecutive top-20 finishes and is a nine-time winner on tour.

A dozen golfers are within four shots of the lead and the Blair Atholl Championship is set for a thrilling conclusion on Sunday.

But Albertse is already in the top-10 of the order of merit in a breakthrough season for the third-year pro, he is high on confidence and good in the wind.

“Winning before changes your frame of mind a bit, you know you can do it, you did it once so you can do it again. It frees up your game a bit and you give yourself more chances,” Albertse said.

SUN CITY, North-West (16 October) – Lyle Rowe knew that if he kept knocking on doors one would eventually open again and Saturday was the day when his first Sunshine Tour title in five years finally arrived as he won the Blue Label Challenge at the Gary Player Country Club.

Rowe, one point off the lead going into the final round, shot a three-under-par 69 on Saturday for nine points, taking his overall tally over the four days to 33 points in the event that uses a modified Stableford scoring system.

That was four points clear – the equivalent of two birdies – of second-placed Dylan Mostert and was enough to give Rowe his third Sunshine Tour title and his first since winning the Zimbabwe Open in April 2016.

“I’ve been playing well for a while now and I just knew I needed to keep doing what I’ve been doing,” Rowe said. “It’s just a couple of shots every tournament and even though I didn’t make it easy for myself, I kept giving myself chances. I’ve gone back to the short putter, which gives me more feel, so I’ve been putting well and I’ve just been doing the right things mentally, controlling what I can on the course.”

It was also the Humewood golfer’s first win on South African soil as his other triumph came in the Zambia Open in June 2014.

“I was runner-up twice in this event in Swaziland, so I probably should have won there too! But to win on as great a golf course as this and in South Africa is special. I enjoy the format, I am quite aggressive and it shows I guess in that I get more birdies and bogeys, but a dropped shot is only minus a point while a birdie gets you two points,” Rowe said.

Where the 34-year-old Rowe really shut out the opposition was around the turn, where he played superbly to collect four successive birdies.

Despite bogeys on the 16^th and 17^th holes, Rowe failing to get out of a greenside bunker on his first attempt but hitting the next shot to three feet, Mostert was four points behind as they teed it up on the final hole.

But the left-hander sent his drive into the right rough and was unable to go direct for the green with his second. Rowe hit the perfect drive, laid up and then two-putted for a rock-solid par.

“I got nice momentum and confidence around the turn, which meant I went into the back nine feeling positive and I trusted myself down the stretch. I tried to get a bit too cute with that first bunker shot,” Rowe said.

Another left-hander, Ruan Korb, who was the second-round leader, fired the best round of the day, his 67 earning him 14 points and lifting him into a share of third with Jaco Ahlers on 27 points. Korb collected two eagles on the back nine, including one on the par-four 15^th when he drove the green.

Ockie Strydom was alone in fifth with 26 points.

Scores – https://sunshinetour.com/tournament-information/?tourn=BLCH&season=221S&report=tmentry~season=221S~alphaorder~#/home