Ken Borland

Kathu (Northern Cape) – When Martin Vorster tees it up in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Sishen event from Friday, there will be a sense of it being a comeback moment for the 22-year-old from Fancourt.

That’s because it will be Vorster’s first individual event in which he feels properly prepared following the hip injury that kept him out of action for three months.

Vorster did play in the Bain’s Whisky Ubunye Championship last week and finished in a tie for fifth, but that was a team event, the former top-ranked amateur playing with Jovan Rebula.

But the fact that he played so well in just his second Sunshine Tour event since May means he goes into the second Vodacom Origins of Golf tournament of the season in high spirits. It also helps that he loves the Sishen Golf Club course; they do say that if you ever play this astonishing gem set in a lush camelthorn forest on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, you’ll want to come back.

“It’s going to be very nice to get going again,” Vorster said after the first day of the popular pro-am that always precedes the Vodacom Origins of Golf tournaments. “I returned to the Sunshine Tour three weeks ago at the Gary and Vivienne Player Challenge at Kyalami Country Club, but I had just started hitting balls and it was more about testing whether my body was ready. Everything went well on that front, but my game was not ready yet and I didn’t play very well.

“But then I had a good week’s practise and it was a blessing to then play in a team event, which was less stressful. There were still a few rusty shots, but it’s just great to be back competing again. This is an unbelievable course and I always look forward to playing here,” Vorster said.

It was the eagle eye and intimate knowledge of the kinetics of the golf swing of coach Doug Wood that saved Vorster from a potentially more serious hip injury.

“I started working with Doug at the end of 2022 and he said my then-swing could cause problems for my hip. So I had to change it and we worked on it for a long time and made so much progress. But it was just too late and I tore my labrum.

“Thankfully it was not a complete tear. But it was not ideal and I had to rest for six weeks before starting rehab. I still have two or three weeks of rehab to go, but I am so thankful to be back on tour,” Vorster said.

After a difficult 2023/24 season in which he finished 83^rd on the Order of Merit delivered by The Courier Guy, Vorster made a fine start to the current campaign with top-10 finishes in his first two events – the FBC Zim Open and the KitKat Cash & Carry Pro-Am. But then his hip gave way.

“It was very frustrating and it happened just when my game was heading the right way after last season. It was my first time in Europe, playing on the Challenge Tour, and I struggled more with the off-course stuff, the travelling, the language barriers – everything was new.

“I also just played too much golf. I only had 10 weeks off last season, but it was a great experience. But now I’m more focused on the Sunshine Tour and doing well here will open more doors, it allows you to skip certain stages of the DP World Tour qualifying school.

“My first goal now is to be in the top-10 on the order of merit because then I can get back in a re-rank category that qualifies me for the DP World Tour co-sanctioned events,” Vorster said.

Vorster will be up against experienced campaigners like Danie van Tonder and Jean Hugo, who have both won twice this season, at Sishen, as well as the in-form duo of Yurav Premlall and Jacques Blaauw, both flying high on the Order of Merit delivered by The Courier Guy.

KHOLWANE (Eswatini) – Golf can be a cruel mistress and is even tougher when a course comprises two nines that are totally different in style, but Jason Roets has handled the challenges of the Nkonyeni Lodge and Golf Estate with aplomb as he goes into the final round of the FNB Eswatini Challenge with a one-stroke lead.

Roets fired a marvellous bogey-free six-under-par 66 in Friday’s second round to go to 11-under-par for the tournament. The Dainfern golfer dropped just one shot in the first round, sharing the lead with Combrinck Smit and Stephen Ferreira, so it is fair to say he has mastered the 18-hole combination of nine holes on the Bushveld Golf Course and nine on the Golden Eagle Links.

Roets started his round on Friday on the 10^th, the Bushveld nine, and went out in four-under, and then finished his round wonderfully with birdies on the seventh and ninth holes, both par-fours, as he took his score to six-under over the first two days on the front nine links.

“It was a very nice day, any time you go bogey-free you know you’ve played well,” Roets said. “I like both nines, it’s a really unique challenge to have a whole new set-up after halfway.

“On seven I hit a good drive, hit my second to 25 feet and made a really nice putt. On the short ninth, I took driver and was slightly left of the green, but I hit a great shot to about two feet,” Roets said.

The 31-year-old Roets is one stroke clear of former SA Open winner Danie van Tonder, who showed a return to something approaching his best form with a 66 on Friday, his lowest round this season. He had one bogey on each nine, but eagled the par-five eighth and collected six birdies.

Other contenders for the title on Saturday are Keenan Davidse (68) and Neil Schietekat (69) on seven-under, while Lyle Rowe fired a 67 to be five strokes back on six-under-par.

Smit could only shoot level-par 72 on Friday and is in the tie for sixth on five-under, while Ferreira had three bogeys on the front nine and a seven on the par-five 15^th in a 74 that leaves him eight shots behind.

Roets has been on the Sunshine Tour since 2020/21 and is without a victory after 68 tournaments. Other than contending strongly on the Blue Label Development Tour, the former University of North Texas golfer also has three top-10 finishes on the Sunshine Tour proper. But this season has been his best, as he currently sits 32^nd on the Order of Merit delivered by The Courier Guy.

“I’ve played really nicely this year, just a couple of rounds have let me down. So it’s nice to capitalise on good golf. Obviously I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about my first win, but I’m just going to try hard to stay in the moment in the final round, take it shot-for-shot with 100% commitment,” Roets said.

SUN CITY, North-West – United States-based South African Paula Reto may have looked a bit like a fish out of water when she bogeyed the second and third holes on the second day of the SuperSport Ladies Challenge presented by Sun International on Thursday, but the rest of her round at the Lost City Golf Club then went swimmingly as she claimed a share of the lead.

Reto went on a run of five birdies in six holes from the fifth hole, and then added back-to-back birdies on the 13^th and 14^th holes, before returning from a lightning break with another gain on the 17^th. Her superb six-under-par 66 lifted her to eight-under overall and she will go into the final round tied for the lead with India’s Tvesa Malik, who fired a stunning 65.

The 33-year-old Reto won this tournament in 2022, but it was then played at the Gary Player Country Club. But after a tough 2023 campaign on the LPGA Tour, Reto is in a good frame of mind back in her home country, and it showed in her ability to bounce back from two early setbacks on Thursday.

“I don’t know what happened really, I hit a bad tee-shot on the second and suddenly I’d gone bogey-bogey. I just said to myself that I must give myself opportunities and fortunately I then managed to get the ball close to the hole a few times, and chipped in on the eighth, which is always nice for your momentum,” Reto said.

“Lost City is completely different to the GPCC, you have to strategise more off the tees, it’s a course that requires more thinking. To be able to bounce back after those two bogeys felt really good and I was very happy that I kept to the plan. I was able to stay on plan and not let the bogeys get to me.

“Last year was tough because I struggled with my swing a bit and I couldn’t string four good rounds together. It starts to take a toll on your confidence and you start to try and change so much all at once.

“So at the start of this year I just tried to hone in on a few things, make sure I do those basics well. I’m happy with where my game is heading and I just love coming back here to South Africa, being with my family and feeling a bit like I’m on vacation,” Reto said.

Getting married on December 29 to fellow Indian professional golfer Ajeetesh Sandhu certainly seems to have bear fruit for Malik as she produced an outstanding, bogey-free round with four birdies on the back nine and then three on the front.

First-round leader Lauren Taylor shot a 70 on Thursday to move to six-under-par, two off the lead, while exciting South African youngster Gabrielle Venter shot 68 on Thursday to move to five-under.

“We are not a one-man show,” Wiaan Mulder said when asked why the Durban Super Giants have made it all the way to the SA20 final following their 69-run demolition of the Joburg Super Kings in the last Qualifier at the Wanderers on Thursday evening.

But if truth be told, their emphatic victory was at most a two-man show as a scintillating partnership between Mulder and Heinrich Klaasen carried the game well out of the Super Kings’ reach.

Klaasen and Mulder added 101 for the fifth wicket off just 38 balls, transforming a match in which Joburg seemed to have the upper hand for the first dozen overs. They lashed 112 runs in the last seven overs, including 29 runs being plundered off both the 15^th over bowled by Imran Tahir and the 18^th bowled by Sam Cook.

The incredible onslaught carried the Super Giants to 211 for six after they had been sent in to bat. The stand between Klaasen and Mulder was the best ever for Durban’s fifth wicket, beating the unbeaten 84 Klaasen and Matthew Breetzke put on against the Pretoria Capitals at SuperSport Park last season.

The Super Giants then kept chipping away with the ball, dismissing Joburg Super Kings for 142 in the 18^th over.

The Durbanites did not have a great start, being 52 for three after seven overs, but Sri Lankan Bhanuka Rajapaksa, making his SA20 debut, helped Klaasen stabilise matters with his composed 35 off 23 balls as 43 was added for the fourth wicket. They then had the breathing space to launch the most stunning assault in the closing overs.

“We kinda knew the pitch had something in it and it was important to have a partnership,” Mulder said. “It’s not like we said we were going to pull the trigger, but we had a couple of match-ups, one thing led to the next and it just happened.

“A couple of soft balls got me going, then Klaasie got going and we all know how devastating he is when he’s firing. He’s arguably the best T20 batsman in the world at the moment. He’s a superstar and to score 74 off 30 on that pitch is a joke.

“I don’t think over 200 was par, maybe 180. It was really hard to score when they bowled into the pitch, but we had a couple of opportunities when they went full. And the way Klaasie was striking it, he turned 180 into more than 200. If the bowlers missed by a foot, they were in the stands, and maybe there were a few execution errors,” Mulder said.

The all-rounder will surely have changed some perceptions about him as a T20 player as his superb, vital 50 not out off just 23 balls continued his strong form this season.

While Klaasen will undoubtedly be the key man when DSG take on the Sunrisers at Newlands on Saturday, the defending champions will know their opponents have in-form, contributing players right through their line-up.

Breetzke and Jon-Jon Smuts have both made consistent runs and five DSG bowlers have taken more than 10 wickets.

“We are very similar to the Sunrisers in that we’ve had consistent performances from different people and that’s what wins competitions,” Mulder said. “To win competitions doesn’t take one person, it’s about how the players and management look after each other. In any successful team, the people play for the team.

“The most important thing is the environment and trying to create a good culture. There’s no unnecessary pressure put on us and there’s no nitpicking from anyone. That’s a big part of why we will be playing in the final,” Mulder said.