Ken Borland

BENONI, Gauteng – We will have to wait a little longer for Jayden Schaper’s maiden professional win, but Pieter Moolman was a worthy winner of the Fortress Invitational at Ebotse Links on Sunday as he pipped the highly-rated former junior star in a playoff.

Moolman certainly did the hard yards for his maiden Sunshine Tour title, starting the final round three shots behind Schaper. And as he reached the final hole in regulation play, he was three-under for his round, having mixed five birdies with two bogeys, and looked like falling just short on 12-under-par as Schaper was already on 14-under-par.

But the 31-year-old Moolman hit an excellent drive and a superb approach shot on the par-five 18^th to 10 feet from the hole, and nailed the eagle putt to vault to 14-under.

Schaper then bogeyed the par-four 17^th but made birdie at the last to force a playoff with an excellent up-and-down after short-siding himself.

Moolman again hit a brilliant second in the playoff, finishing just off the green after being in the semi-rough on a mound. He would chip and sink a four-foot putt for birdie, while Schaper was unfortunate that his approach shot, which looked really good in the air, took a hard first bounce and ran through the green. The 21-year-old then could not quite sink a 10-footer for birdie, handing Moolman the win.

“I’ve lost a few times in these situations, but I’ve played better golf a few times than I did today,” Moolman said. “So to get over the line is really special and it shows that it does not take a perfect performance to win.

“It’s more mental, about believing you can still put a score on the board if you’re playing average golf, when your swing is not really there. I just had to stay in the moment and commit to what I was doing, take it shot-for-shot.”

Schaper will look back on a level-par back nine, which featured bogeys at the par-three 11^th and the penultimate hole, as having cost him, but he showed tremendous determination and character in birdieing the last hole to get into the playoff, from which point it all becomes a bit of a lottery.

For Moolman, who like Schaper is based in Benoni and knows the Ebotse Links well, the win will give him great confidence heading into the big summer events. He has finished runner-up twice before this year, including at the Tour Championship at nearby Serengeti Estate.

“I’ve been playing solid golf for a while and I played solid enough the whole week, I was just trying to give myself opportunities, keep the ball in play and give myself a chance,” Moolman said.

“Finishing second at the Wild Coast a few weeks back, I made some mistakes down the back nine, but I learnt from that and how to stay strong.

“Now that I’ve won, you start believing you can win again and that you belong here. I’m looking forward to the summer events,” Moolman said.

Although he finished fourth, two shots off the pace, Sean Bradley will remember the final round for a long time as he began with a double-bogey at the first hole, but then made a hole-in-one at the par-three eighth. He then rounded off his round with a massive eagle putt, from off the green, on the last hole, finishing with a 63 that put him right into contention.

American Dan Erickson claimed third place on 13-under, signing for a 67 after he could only make par on the last three holes.

The success of the alignment camps and the likelihood that there will not be any Covid bubbles to negotiate means Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber is in no rush to name his squad for the incoming series against Wales in July and will wait until the URC plays itself out.

Nienaber, speaking at SA Rugby’s announcement of a three-year initiative with Betway called Next Phase, which will develop the women’s game through growing coaching capacity, said his squad has not even been chosen yet. Wales announced their touring group on May 18.

“I’ll announce the squad only after the players have completed their commitments with their franchises,” Nienaber said in Rosebank on Thursday. “They don’t need to hear from the national coach now, just their franchise coaches.

“We haven’t yet had our selection meeting, although there is a certain group that we are looking at. We know who we’re looking at, we’ve had alignment camps, but we’ll let the teams play their URC playoffs first.

“The Welsh teams are already all out of the URC, so Wales can already be in camp, but it’s going to be more staggered for us, with players joining us as their teams fall out. The overseas players are in the same position.

“Last year it was very tough to plan, almost impossible, you’d have 10 different scenarios and see what pans out. This year looks like normal and hopefully there won’t be any bubbles to contend with,” Nienaber said.

While only a handful of players from the UK tour last November will be nervous about the beul’s axe hanging over their heads, Nienaber said he was heartened by the performances of the South African teams in the United Rugby Championship.

“I was encouraged by all four teams, all of them have played excellent rugby. Even the Lions did well with their comeback, they had a great winning streak here.”

Nienaber, who helped out with the coaching of the Springbok women’s team in 2014/15, said Next Phase came from an epiphany that their approach was wrong back then.

“Women’s rugby is on another development level and we probably made a mistake trying to foist a men’s programme on them back in 2014/15. The basics are not necessarily there with the girls because they start playing so late.

“You need to build the basics and then put the next layer in, which is adding the creative plans. I became a better coach through my involvement with them,” Nienaber said.

GQEBERHA, Eastern Cape – Daniel Greene had a feeling that his 12-year wait for a first win on the Sunshine Tour might come to an end this week at the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series Humewood event and the 36-year-old never stopped believing, and his composure and skill was enough to take him to victory on the first hole of a playoff with Tristen Strydom.

Greene and Strydom both shot two-under-par 70s on Saturday to finish on five-under-par overall, and Greene parred the first playoff hole to take the honours when his younger rival, also looking for his first win, made bogey.

“You don’t really think after so long on tour without a win that it can happen, but it being windy here for the last week, I had a feeling from Tuesday that I could win and I just kept believing in myself. Even today on the 17^th hole, when I was one behind, I still had that belief. My golf has improved inland but I’m still a lot more comfortable on the coast.

“For it to happen at Humewood, where I should have won in 2010, it’s surreal. Maybe I should believe in myself more often because it shows that nothing is out of reach, even 11 years later, if you never stop believing,” Greene said after his maiden title.

Back in 2010, in the Vodacom Business tournament at Humewood Golf Club, Greene finished second as he double-bogeyed both the 17^th and 18^th holes on the last day, allowing Ulrich van den Berg to snatch the win.

This time Greene was the beneficiary of an opponent letting it slip as Strydom bogeyed the 17^th and after their respective bogeys on the last hole, the KwaZulu-Natalian had nothing but sympathy for the 24-year-old.

Strydom was ideally placed after his second shot was on the fringe of the green, but he decided to chip instead of putt and then missed a makeable par putt.

“It was unfortunate for Tristen and I know exactly what he feels like after it happened to me in 2010. He played very well and hit the ball really nicely, but all I was doing was concentrating on my score and taking it shot-by-shot. I didn’t know the score and when we both made bogey on the 18^th, I asked him if he had won because people were clapping like he had,” Greene revealed.

It turned out their final scores were the same – five-under-par 211 – and Greene still had one more hole to play to exorcise his Humewood demons.

Given that half-a-dozen of Greene’s best performances have been on the coast, it was perhaps not that surprising that his perseverance was finally rewarded at Humewood’s famous links on an awfully windy day.

Keegan Petersen and Kyle Verreynne may have felt like they were frozen out of the Test team given how long they have had to wait for their chance, but like London Buses two gaps have come along at the same time and they have both made their debut in the first Test between South Africa and the West Indies at St Lucia.

Petersen has been part of the squad since December 2019 and Verreynne was first called up in ODI cricket a couple of months later. They have both come through the fertile ground of Western Cape cricket, although Petersen comes from the Boland and Verreynne hails from Wynberg Boys High School and Western Province Schools.

With the West Indies winning the toss and choosing to bat first, they will be hoping the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium pitch becomes nice and flat as they look to make their mark in a South African batting line-up that has lost a vast amount of experience in the last few years. Petersen is the replacement for retired former captain Faf du Plessis and Verreynne gets his chance due to new vice-captain Temba Bavuma having a hip injury.

The 27-year-old Petersen has been pretty much permanently piling on the runs in franchise cricket in the last four seasons. In that time he has not once averaged less than 44 and has posted eight centuries in 39 matches for the Knights and Dolphins, who he joined last season. He left the Cape Cobras in 2017 due to limited opportunities, the elegant right-hander playing only seven matches for them.

While there has been disappointment in some quarters that Verreynne has had to wait until now for his Test debut, as the back-up wicketkeeper to Quinton de Kock his chances are always going to be limited. But four hundreds and 16 fifties in 32 matches for the Cobras are not to be scoffed at, and many of those big innings have come when the Cobras have been struggling and conditions are hard.

The 24-year-old embodies the grit and determination so many South African middle-order batsmen are famous for and he will want to lift what has been a disappointing output by the Proteas batsmen recently.