Ken Borland

“We are adapting well to the different interpretations at the breakdown,” Bulls consultant Nollis Marais said on Monday in respect of the journey the team has taken from initial teething problems in the rucks to it now being a strength of the juggernaut side who are now six points clear at the top of the SuperRugby Unlocked log.

Marais is the breakdown specialist on Jake White’s coaching staff and he admitted that it has not been an easy area to perfect so far this season.

“There have been different interpretations at the breakdown and we do a lot of research into what the different referees want and try and prepare the players for that. We’re getting quite good guidelines from the referees who assist us and I think the breakdown should just get better and better and by the second half of the competition we should be certain of what we’re doing.

“We adapted well to what referee AJ Jacobs wanted at the weekend, we conceded a couple of penalties early on against the Stormers and we knew it would be a physical battle at the breakdown because Steven Kitshoff and Jaco Coetzee like to go hard in trying to get the ball. But our plan worked and by the end of the game we were winning the penalties,” Marais said.

The Bulls are currently ranked as the top team in the competition in terms of turnovers won, and that has largely been due to the outstanding efforts of Duane Vermeulen and Marco van Staden, although Marais did point out contesting ball at the breakdowns is something every player is expected to contribute towards.

“The breakdown is all about team-work, from number one to 15, the whole team is drilled in that area and even Travis Ismaiel and Stedman Gans were involved in turnovers against the Stormers. But every week Marco does a review of the clips with me and at first he tended to chase every ruck, but now he gets better reads and is getting better and better at deciding when to try and steal the ball and when not to steal.

“As far as Duane goes, well you just can’t move Thor, can you? You need 15 players to move Thor. If Duane is at a breakdown then I know we’re going to get a penalty,” Marais said.

The Bulls are now preparing for a different breakdown challenge against the Lions at Ellis Park on Saturday night.

“The Lions want to play quickly, so we have to try and make their ball slower. They can be very physical too, but then they’re just trying to make the game quicker all the time. So it’s very important that we don’t allow them quick ball,” Marais said.

George Coetzee is not the only man who considers Pretoria Country Club to be his own stamping ground as Tristen Strydom showed on Thursday in shooting a brilliant seven-under-par 65 to join the first-round leader at the top of the leaderboard after the second round of the Titleist Championship.

Coetzee has won two Tshwane Opens at the Waterkloof course and enjoyed plenty of junior success here, but Thursday was a struggle for him as he posted a 70 to move to seven-under for the tournament heading into Friday’s final round.

But while the 34-year-old’s record at Pretoria Country Club is well-known, Strydom showed his own liking for the parklands course with a phenomenal round that included eight birdies and an eagle. The next best round was a 67 by Louis Albertse that saw him make the cut.

The 23-year-old Strydom is in just his second season on the Sunshine Tour and has won less than R60 000 in 19 events.

“Man I am just absolutely loving it! To be playing on my home course, and to be feeling really confident, obviously helps a lot. I actually live on the course and all the members are really helping me and want me to play well. Glendower and Killarney are like this as well, all tough courses, but I just didn’t feel as comfortable on them. My goal was to just be in contention, so now I will just try and do the same thing in the final round.

“I putted really nicely and a lot more putts went in today. The momentum got rolling really nicely and then the eagle on nine took me to six-under. I know where not to hit it on this course and I was really good off the tee. The most important thing in the final round is just to have fun and it’s all good vibes out there, we are all just so happy we got the opportunity to be playing again,” Strydom said after his best ever round on the Sunshine Tour.

Strydom took advantage of going off at 7.45am in the fourth threeball, but as the weather cleared and the temperature increased significantly, so the greens speeded up and became particularly tough to hold. Coetzee, a fine iron player, said it was heavy going.

“It was all a bit scruffy, I didn’t hit the ball as well as in the first round and my game was just not all there, I was just not on it today. The pins were tricky, a lot of them were crazy, and the greens are fast so you end up going for the middle of the green at best. You have to play away from the pins and if you don’t focus, big numbers come into play. We were all putting 30 feet for birdie instead of from five feet.

“So I hit a lot of greens but I just tried to make no mistakes, I was maybe a bit too conservative. But a bogey on the first hole made me. In the end I’m actually quite happy to shoot something under-par,” Coetzee said.

Hennie O’Kennedy, the rookie who shared the overnight lead with Coetzee, had an even tougher day and notched up one of those big numbers with a nine on the par-five fourth, on his way to an 83 that saw him miss the cut by two strokes.

Another rookie, Clayton Mansfield of Durban Country Club, has played particularly well with rounds of 68 and 72 to lie in third place, three behind the leaders. Former SA Boys champion Pieter Moolman, of Benoni Lakes, shot an excellent 68 on Thursday to move into fourth on three-under-par, while the exciting young Jayden Schaper and nine-time Sunshine Tour winner Jaco Ahlers are on two-under-par.

Killarney Country Club once again put the Sunshine Tour’s top pros through the mill on Thursday, with only four golfers able to enjoy the comfort of being under par after the second round of the Betway Championship, the opening event of the Rise Up Series that marks the return to action after the Covid-19 Lockdown.

Top of the pile was Sunshine Tour veteran Alex Haindl, who shot a marvellous 67 on Thursday to go into the final round on three-under-par, one stroke ahead of another stalwart in Anton Haig. Two other very experienced campaigners in Ulrich van den Berg and Adilson da Silva are the other golfers under par, after they both finished on one-under after shooting 69s.

Although conditions were warmer and there was just a comfortable breeze blowing, the 103-man field once again struggled with the hard and fast greens, putting a premium on accuracy off the tee on the tight, tree-lined layout.

Haindl, rebuilding his career after a couple of back surgeries, was relieved to be playing well in his 20^th season on the Sunshine Tour.

“It’s just nice to be playing again, you don’t know where you game is when you’re just practising at home because you’re not under the gun and you can’t see where your game needs to be better. Since my last surgery last year it just felt like I couldn’t get going, I wasn’t moving the way I like, but today was a bit better. The game was a bit neater today, I kept it together better.

“My short game was a bit sharper today as I got more used to the dry fairways and firm greens. I was just trying to miss in the right places and made a couple of good saves. Luckily I wasn’t playing too early in the morning, although it was a bit windy. But as the weather heats up, the ball flies further almost immediately – it’s like one shot suddenly goes 6-7 metres further,” Haindl said after his round which included just a solitary dropped shot at the par-three 17^th.

The youngsters that are used to bombing the ball miles off the tee seem to be losing this particular arms race, given the veterans in the top four, but there are still some fresh faces very much in contention to claim the first Sunshine Tour title on offer since Lockdown.

Rookie Ruan Korb is just three strokes back on level-par, while former amateur sensation Jayden Schaper showed once again that he has the mettle, even though he is still in his teens, to mix it with the men as he lay in a threatening position just four strokes back after solid rounds of 73 and 68.

Keith Horne is with him on one-over-par and he clearly has all the weapons to win on Friday, having claimed nine Sunshine Tour titles. First-round leader Dylan Mostert slipped back into a tie for ninth after a 75 on Thursday, but he is just five shots adrift of the lead.

Haindl said patience and accuracy off the tee would be key attributes to win on Friday.

“The par-fives are quite important but it’s very difficult to stop your second shot on the green, so there are no gimmies. If you drive decently then you can have a lot of wedges coming in, so if you’re swinging okay then you can give yourself a few chances. But it’s very tough, you need to stay patient and accept the outcome if you’ve done your best, if you had a good yardage and a good swing.

“My game-plan was pretty decent, I kept it in play most of the time and gave myself chances. In order to win tomorrow, I just have to play better than the other guys!” Haindl said.

The country’s top golfers are going to Killarney Country Club on Wednesday morning to restart the professional game with the Betway Championship, and Danie van Tonder, given the way he finished last season, is going to be one of the favourites to claim the Sunshine Tour’s first title after the Covid-19 Lockdown.

Van Tonder finished in the top-10 five times in January and February, lifting him to second place in the final order of merit. With winner JC Ritchie not playing this week, the 29-year-old from Boksburg is looking to maintain that sort of consistency. But he is going to have to rein in his usual aggressive play a little to succeed on a course like Killarney which requires more strategy than power.

“I had three months off which gave me time to work on things, try and fix some things to make me more consistent. When you’re playing week-after-week, you can’t really change things and it takes like 21 days to teach your body something new. But we start over again now, I’ve lost some weight and I’m stronger, so I’m really looking forward to getting out there again.

“Killarney has lots of doglegs, water hazards and ditches, so it might not be a long course, but it is difficult. You’ve got to get your lay-ups right and pitch-and-putt very well. I’m normally very attacking, but you can’t be too aggressive going over the trees, and there are so many of them. Plus the greens are firm, so if you’re pitching from the rough you’re going to be in trouble,” Van Tonder told The Citizen on Tuesday.

For Sunshine Tour stalwart Jaco Ahlers it will be business as usual though, as the 37-year-old veteran of 268 tournaments looks to build on one of his most successful seasons ever, finishing third on the order of merit for 2019/20.

“I’m really looking forward to playing competitive golf again after the longest layoff in my career. We’ve had time to get ready and the game is pretty decent. It was in a good space when we stopped playing and I’ve just worked on a little swing feeling. But I’m very surprised how good the game feels, I don’t feel I’ve lost a lot. But it’s just the mentality of competitive golf that has to come back.

“It’s a different mindset to the little money games you have at home, you need to get those tournament golf feelings back and sometimes it comes quickly and sometimes it doesn’t. And Killarney is always a really good, demanding layout on which you’ve got to place the ball in certain positions to have a shot in. You’ve really got to think your way around and you can’t just bomb Driver,” Ahlers said.