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.

KHOLWANE, Eswatini – Multiple Sunshine Tour winner Jean Hugo and Wynand Dingle got to within a stroke at times, but Jaco Prinsloo held his nerve to stay in front and complete a wire-to-wire three-stroke victory in the FNB Eswatini Nkonyeni Challenge at the Nkonyeni Lodge and Golf Estate on Saturday.

Prinsloo shot a three-under-par 69 in Saturday’s third and final round to finish on 12-under-par in the R1 million tournament, with Hugo posting a 68 to finish on nine-under-par, and a bogey on the par-three 18^th hole seeing Dingle sign for a 68 as well, but slipping back into a tie for third with Keegan Thomas (68) and Martin Rohwer (69) on eight-under.

The 32-year-old Prinsloo, who counts big titles such as the 2017 Vodacom Origins of Golf Final and last year’s Players Championship among his five professional titles, led by two strokes going into the final round. He made a nervous start with a bogey at the par-four first hole, but his lead grew again with three successive birdies from the seventh hole.

The Serengeti Golf and Wildlife Estate golfer went three ahead with a birdie at the par-four 12^th hole, but a bogey at the par-four 14^th, which Hugo birdied, made for a nervous finish, especially with the last hole being a tricky par-three.

But Prinsloo crucially managed to get a birdie-three on the 16^th hole, while Hugo made bogey and Dingle could only make par, and the Centurion resident parred the last two holes for a victory that got him up to fourth on the Luno Order of Merit.

What was most impressive about Prinsloo’s win was that he did what he said he was going to do as the frontrunner on the final day: He kept his head down and stuck to his game-plan, no matter what the compelling duo of Hugo and Dingle threw at him.

Perhaps the biggest change in the Simon Harmer who last played for South Africa in 2015 and the one who is now back in the Test squad in New Zealand is how the off-spinner has become a systematic winner of matches, mostly for Essex but now also for the Northerns Titans in the limited time he has spent with them.

Harmer has collected more first-class wickets than anyone else in the world over the last five years and he has taken 10 wickets in a match seven times in 64 matches for Essex, with 23 five-wicket hauls.

The 32-year-old has already taken 35 wickets in six matches for Northerns, playing key roles in their wins at Newlands (10 wickets) and in Bloemfontein (8 wickets).

“There’s been that perception that off-spinners in general are there to stop the game, go for two runs an over,” Harmer told The Citizen on Tuesday, “but that has shifted to being a wicket-taking option, someone able to win games.

“I have also changed and I now have the realisation that I can win games, I’m able to really influence the outcome. That has been a big change for me over the last few years.

“I’ve relished winning games for Essex and hopefully now even more for the Titans, winning games for them in the second innings in South African conditions.

“At the start of the season, conditions were not conducive to spin so my role was to hold up an end, stop the game, give the team control at one end while the seamers rotate,” Harmer said.

It is very apparent that a major part of Harmer’s development into being one of the world’s best off-spinners has simply been the amount of cricket he has played. The Pretoria-born star has thrived on playing back-to-back seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres. He was a bit more than a budding off-spinner when he signed as a Kolpak player in English county cricket, but he is now certainly in full bloom as a master of his craft.

“Playing back-to-back seasons has really helped me to evolve and develop much quicker,” Harmer said. “And it’s not just the number of games but also the different conditions you experience.

“In England the weather is different, you play with a Dukes ball and there are different pitches. So you learn a lot and you have to do it quickly. You learn about different grips, strategies and which variations work.

“I’ve learnt along the way to sum up what will work very early in a spell and you also need to be able to change things if they are not working, and still be accurate and consistent,” Harmer said.

Keshav Maharaj is almost exactly a year younger than him, having celebrated his 32^nd birthday on Monday, while Harmer turns 33 on Thursday, and their experience and adaptability makes one feel the Proteas have their Test spin-bowling bases well covered.

Thriston Lawrence was still shaking with excitement and the release of nervous tension half-an-hour after being told he was the winner of the weather-disrupted Joburg Open at Randpark Golf Club on Saturday, giving the 24-year-old South African a life-changing first international title.

Saturday was meant to be the final round of the co-sanctioned tournament with the DP World (formerly European) Tour, after the organisers decided to cut the event to 54 holes due to the terrible weather and the turmoil caused by travel restrictions overseas due to the announcement of a new Covid variant discovered in South Africa.

But the thundershowers returned just after midday and did not let-up in time to avoid the tournament being called off at 3pm. With the second round first needing to be completed on Saturday morning, none of the 69 golfers who made the cut were able to complete their third round.

The final placings were therefore decided based on the completed second-round scores and Lawrence, who had bogeyed the first hole and parred the second just before play stopped, was declared the winner by virtue of his four-shot lead over Zander Lombard after back-to-back 65s.

“I’m still shaking and it hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Lawrence said after receiving the crystal trophy. “It’s always been a goal of mine to win on the European Tour, but I didn’t see it coming so quickly and you never think it would come out like this.

“But the whole week has been strange weather and my mentality was just to finish the tournament. It wasn’t nice waiting today because you hear a lot of talk about what might or might not happen.

“But I’m just thankful for the way it turned out, it’s a life-changing moment and a lot of things are going to change in my schedule. It’s an unbelievable feeling. Being me a week ago to now is two worlds apart.

“You want to see yourself up there winning tournaments, but there have been a lot of knocks in the last year-and-a-half and it’s been tough,” Lawrence said.

The winner of one previous Sunshine Tour event – the 2019 Vodacom Origins Stellenbosch – was a trifle disappointed to not have his winning moment on the 18^th green, but even that did not stop his perpetual smile.

“I would have liked to get the win on the 18^th, have a winning putt, so it was not the perfect way to finish,” Lawrence said.

“But I played unbelievable golf over the last two days to take a four-shot lead into the weekend.

“Then the tournament was cut short amid a lot of confusion. The weather prediction was actually fine for today with a zero percent chance of lightning. But that only lasted 45 minutes.

“But I just stayed patient and I will take a lot of confidence from this win. And I don’t have to worry about invites anymore,” the Nelspruit golfer said.