Ken Borland

Dawie van der Walt held off the challenge of the in-form Darren Fichardt to win the inaugural Tshwane Open and claim the first major tour title of his career at the Els Club Copperleaf on Sunday.

The 6’5” Van der Walt shot a 67 in the final round to finish the co-sanctioned European/Sunshine tour event on 21-under-par, two strokes ahead of Fichardt, the new Order of Merit leader who won the Africa Open two weeks ago and finished in the top-10 last week at the Dimension Data Pro-Am.

Van der Walt began the final round in a four-way tie for the lead with compatriots Fichardt and Charl Coetzee and Chilean Mark Tullo. And the 30-year-old was under some early pressure as both Fichardt and Coetzee birdied the second and third holes.

But the Paarl product made his move on the par-five fourth hole, which began the tournament as the longest in European Tour history at 626m. With the tees moved forward on Sunday, a player of Van der Walt’s length was able to reach the green in two and he nailed the 15-foot putt for eagle.

Birdies followed on the sixth and seventh holes and, although there was a bit of a wobble around the turn, Van der Walt sealed the biggest victory of his career with further birdies at the par-four 12^th and par-five 15^th holes.

There is no secrecy when it comes to what made Van der Walt successful around Copperleaf. Hitting the ball long is always useful at the Centurion course, but the U.S.-based golfer was impressively precise off the tee and especially with his irons.

“Lately I haven’t been hitting the ball so good, I’ve been playing terribly, but I found something in my swing at the Dimension Data and I felt something in my game coming here. I hit the ball really well and I missed just two fairways today and one green. It meant I hardly had to chip at all and that’s not my strength.

“It’s unbelievable to play well and win. Golf is a game where you don’t get many chances to win, some people never do, and often you play well and don’t win,” Van der Walt said.

The genial giant said his victory was all about goal-setting and not getting distracted by the bigger picture.

“I just wanted to play solid, I was aiming for five-under today and 10-under for the weekend, which worked out well. I’ve been in these situations a couple of times and if you think ahead you lose it. I just set a goal of being 10-under for the weekend and that would ensure I make a whole lot of money. I didn’t think it would be enough to win the tournament, but I would have taken second. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself,” Van der Walt admitted after shooting a pair of five-under-par 67s to finish the tournament on top.

It certainly did earn the six-year pro a whole lot of money – R2,781,675 to be precise, which translates into €237,750, considerably more than the €148,974 he had won in total on the European Tour before Sunday.

Van der Walt campaigns on the Web.com Tour in America, the level below the PGA Tour and formerly known as the Nationwide or Challenge Tour, and it presents the Kingwood, Texas resident with a conundrum in terms of where to play now that he has a two-year exemption on the lucrative European Tour.

“It definitely helps that the purses are a lot bigger in Europe! But I live in America now and I have full status on the Web.com Tour. My ultimate goal is to get on the PGA Tour but I can make my own schedule now and maybe I can go through the European Tour, that might be a lot easier,” Van der Walt said.

Van der Walt has four victories on satellite tours in the U.S., but a regular tour triumph had eluded him until Sunday. He admitted that there were times when he sat eating his cornflakes and wondering when the breakthrough would come.

“I’ve been a pro for six years and this is the first time I’ve won a big event. You see your friends doing it, you see other people winning, and you wonder when it will happen for you, whether it will ever happen for you, you wonder if you’re good enough.”

Fichardt finished at 19-under 269 and his third birdie, at the par-three fifth hole, gave him the lead on his own. But at that stage the putter went cold and 13 successive pars meant Van der Walt remained at arm’s length.

Louis de Jager shot a 69 on Sunday to finish third on 18-under, with former world number one amateur Peter Uihlein fourth on 17-under, the American also notching a three-under-par final round.

Sweden’s Bjorn Akesson, with a 65 on Sunday, Englishman Danny Willett (66) and Coetzee, who picked up a one-shot penalty for slow play at the 15^th, were tied for fifth at 16-under.

Tullo, the other overnight leader, fell away badly with a 77 which included a double-bogey 6 at the 13^th, where he twice hit into the water left of the green.

Van der Walt, meanwhile, tempered his attacking instincts with the sort of composure that turns the contenders into the champions. He showed this on the final hole when he took less club for his second shot to cater “for the adrenaline”.

The horrors of recent weeks – he said his father suggested he visit a sports psychologist, to which he replied “he’s not going to be able to tell me I’m hitting the ball straight when it’s going sideways” – are now a distant memory.

What is still fresh in Van der Walt’s mind though is the long, hard road he had to take to the podium at the Els Club Copperleaf.

“Playing on the mini-tours, where you have to pay your own fees, makes you hard. I have the instinct to win, every time I play, I’m trying to win,” the newest South African European Tour winner said.

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A shaky back nine in the wind cost Jaco van Zyl victory in the Africa Open two weeks ago, but the in-form South African will be one of the favourites at the European Tour co-sanctioned Tshwane Open which starts at Copperleaf Golf Estate on Thursday.

Van Zyl is chasing his first European Tour victory, which is a long-awaited event seeing as though he has had five top-three finishes in the last three years, as well as seven other top-10s and 11 Sunshine Tour victories.

The 34-year-old will need to improve his form off the tee, however, with Copperleaf being a lengthy 7,123m monster, but he does have the confidence of coming off a win in last weekend’s Sunshine Tour event, the Dimension Data Pro-Am in George.

“The course is really long but the greens are receptive, so I’m sure the scoring will be low,” Van Zyl said of the Copperleaf course formerly known as Gardener Ross.

“My short game is still sharp and my ball-striking was really good last week, I hit the ball nicely and it’s a bit better every week. You have to know what to hit off the tee here and what sort of lie you want to hit your second from,” Van Zyl, who is 82^nd in driving distance on the European Tour this year and 37^th in accuracy, said.

There is no doubt Van Zyl is a major threat in the final co-sanctioned event of the 2012/13 summer, sitting in first place in the Investec Cup standings, third on the Sunshine Tour order of merit, 33^rd on the Race to Dubai and up to 104^th on the world rankings after starting the year in 146^th. His last three finishes have been tied 11^th, tied second and last week’s victory in George.

But the field is a useful one and there are many dangers lurking, much like the numerous large bunkers that are a feature of the Ernie Els-designed course at Copperleaf.

Steve Webster of England is perhaps the most consistent performer on the European Tour thus far this season with four top-10 finishes in six starts, while South Africans Garth Mulroy and Thomas Aiken are also in fine form.

Africa Open winner Darren Fichardt is in the field and there is no lack of experienced worldwide winners either, with Michael Campbell, Jeev Milkha Singh, Jose-Maria Olazabal, Simon Dyson and Darren Clarke all teeing it up on Thursday.

Other participants who have shown top-class form lately include James Kingston, Adilson da Silva, Trevor Fisher Jnr and Danie van Tonder.

Olazabal is a golfing legend, a 31-time winner worldwide, including two Masters crowns, and a triumphant Ryder Cup as captain last year.

But the Spaniard admitted that he is going through a tough time with the driver, which is a major drawback on this particular course.

“Last weekend when I left home we had snow, so I didn’t have much practice over the last week because of the weather. But my last tournament was good [tied 17^th at the Dubai Desert Classic four weeks ago], although I’m having a tough time with my driver. It’s still my Achilles heel and with the course as long as it is, you need to hit it solid off the tee,” Olazabal said.

Campbell, a New Zealander, is also a major champion having won the 2005 US Open as a qualifier. He suffered a missed cut in his last tournament – the Dubai Desert Classic – but was in good form in the Middle East before that with top-20 finishes in both Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

A Maori, Campbell seems to have a healthy outlook on a game that catapulted him to stardom in 2005 before sending him back into anonymity.

“It’s only a game. My results reflect that I’ve turned around again, but I’ve always been up and down like a yo-yo, some very big highs and very big lows. I accept that and I’ve always had them. That’s golf,” Campbell said.

Dyson is a regular visitor to South Africa, having played in 13 co-sanctioned events and finished in the top-20 four times.

And he is a wary admirer of the talent in this country.

“Without a doubt I’ll be watching a few South Africans. They seem to come off the conveyor belt every year and you’ve got some really, really good talent. They all hit it a mile, which sickens me. Every single one of them seems to bomb it, even Sterne who must be 5-foot-one and Schwartzel who could hide behind the pin! It’s just ridiculous, it must be something in the water… or the biltong!” the Englishman joked.

Though the fairways are generally wide, there is a host of bunkers, and golfers who are not accurate run the risk of becoming mired in these sandy expanses.

“It’s brutally long in places, but some of the short holes are typical Ernie – lots of run-offs. A good short game is going to come to the fore if you do miss the short holes. It’s going to be a tough test, because every par-five feels like 650 yards, so it’s not the usual where everyone is going to be hammering it in two. The course is good and it’s in great condition,” the veteran Clarke said.

Milkha Singh is another who has been coming to South Africa for a long time, since 1998, and he is looking forward to a bit of wind blowing around the Highveld grassland course outside Centurion, the Indian having won the Scottish Open last year at the blustery links of Castle Stuart.

“It’s long but bearable. But I hope the wind picks up, that would make it interesting and I’m really happy in the wind,” he said.

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The Sunshine Tour announced two new co-sanctioned events with the European Tour on Tuesday, bringing to six the number of tournaments to be played in South Africa during the 2013 Race to Dubai season.
The Nelson Mandela Championship, to be staged in association with the former South Africa president’s Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, will be held from December 6-9, while the Tshwane Open, backed by the country’s administrative capital, Pretoria, will take place from February 28 to March 3, 2013.
The Tshwane Open at the Els Club Copperleaf will have prizemoney of 1.5 million euro, meaning the winner will gain a two-year exemption on the European Tour, while the purse for the Nelson Mandela Championship has yet to be finalised, but Sunshine Tour executive director Selwyn Nathan said it would be “a minimum of one million euro”.
The Sunshine Tour also announced on Tuesday that the prizemoney for the Alfred Dunhill Championship, to be played at Leopard Creek from December 13-16, has also been increased to 1.5 million euro.
South Africa is now the country that will host the most European Tour events, with the South African Open, Africa Open and Joburg Open also being co-sanctioned events with the Sunshine Tour.
“I’m particularly excited that we have another two European Tour co-sanctioned events, as it shows the confidence one of the two major tours in the world has in us,” Nathan said. “It’s a really special day for us and we hope the stars will support these events. They show we have a face in international golf.”
Although the venue for the Nelson Mandela Championship has also yet to be finalised, Nathan confirmed that it would be held at one of two coastal courses – the Royal Durban Golf Club or Humewood in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. The head of the Sunshine Tour said they were in the process of making sure facilities at the two courses were all in order and they would be paying particular attention to practice facilities and hospitality capability.
“We are hoping the Nelson Mandela Championship will be held for a minimum of three years and it would be wonderful if it could stay in the same place. There are also a whole bunch of opportunities with international players who are in the country already to play at Sun City the week before,” Nathan said.
The Tshwane municipality’s executive mayor, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, said his council are guaranteeing R44 million (4.18 million euro) per annum for their tournament until the Sunshine Tour can find sufficient sponsors.

“The money we are guaranteeing is an investment we are making in ensuring coverage for Tshwane all over the world and it’s a small contribution compared to the budget for the indigent programs that will provide relief to the poor,” Ramokgopa said.

The Tshwane Open, which will be held at the Els Club Copperleaf for the next three years, will bring to an end a month of co-sanctioned events in Africa, including the Africa and Joburg Opens, before the tour returns to Europe.