Author: Michael Vlismas

BALLITO, KwaZulu-Natal – Dylan Naidoo is acknowledged as one of the most talented young golfers in the country and the 24-year-old backed this up when he claimed his maiden Sunshine Tour title on Friday as he won the SunBet Challenge hosted by Sun Sibaya at Umhlali Country Club by two shots.

Naidoo – a member of the Sunshine Tour’s Papwa Sewgolum Class for historically disadvantaged professionals which is supported by Investec, SuperSport, Betway, VAT It, DNI, Credit Guarantee, Cobra Puma and TaylorMade, and The Papwa Foundation – said the key to his breakthrough title was becoming a creature of habit out on the golf course, and taking comfort from a set process.

“The most important thing is that I felt I had the win coming. I’ve been playing very well for the last few weeks. It’s the culmination of having really good processes and discipline out on the course.

“So the best part is that it does not feel like a lightning bolt came down from the sky and I got lucky and won. I feel like I can replicate this because I have a really good process. But of course we will have to wait and see what happens because you never know in golf.”

Naidoo began the final round two shots off the lead and settled himself with a wonderful front nine that was bogey-free and featured back-to-back birdies on the third and fourth holes. But he was still a couple of shots behind Luke Brown until a brilliant eagle on the 489m par-five 10^th saw the former Big Easy Tour golfer vault strongly into contention.

Naidoo then targeted the short par-fours on the back nine, picking up birdies on three of them, and dropping a shot on the 15^th, which he described as “a good bogey”.

A pair of birdies on 16 and 17 beat back the tentacles of the chasing golfers trying to reach him at the top of the leaderboard.

“My goal was just to turn under-par because I had not done it the whole week, so I got that job done on two-under, I played really solid,” Naidoo recalled.

“We had 209 to the flag on 10, but we wanted to pitch it well short because the greens were really starting to firm up. It was a little downwind and my seven-iron pitched and bounced exactly where it needed to and I sank the eight-foot putt for eagle.

“There are so many opportunities on the back nine and good tee shots set me up. I hit really good iron shots too, we were super-consistent with where we wanted to hit them and I putted really well. I sank a 25-footer on 17 which was not expected because it’s a very uphill putt, tricky just to get to the hole,” Naidoo said.

Once the job was done with a four-under 67 leading him to six-under-par for the tournament, he was grateful for all the supporting cast to his biggest win yet in his fledgling golf career.

“It’s taken thousands of hours of hard work and I could not have done it without the team around me – my sponsors, parents and loved ones – and everyone who helped along the journey. I’m just so ecstatic,” Naidoo said.

Brown fell away on the back nine as he dropped three shots by the 15^th hole, finishing on four-under and in a four-way tie for second place with Jaco Prinsloo, amateur Jonathan Broomhead and Ian Snyman.

Prinsloo produced a top-class round of 68 that included two birdies and an eagle on the par-four ninth.

SA Strokeplay champion Broomhead, playing in just his second Sunshine Tour event, also shone with marvellous 69.

Overnight leader Richard Joubert went through hell on the front nine with two double-bogies and then three more bogeys on the back nine, finishing on one-under, in a tie for ninth.

BALLITO, KwaZulu-Natal – Richard Joubert played very good golf on the first two days of the SunBet Challenge hosted by Sun Sibaya to find himself on top of the leaderboard heading into Friday’s final round at the Umhlali Country Club.

Joubert shot a 67 in the first round and then on Thursday, in more difficult conditions, he posted a level-par 71 to sit at four-under-par for the tournament.

It is going to be a very competitive final round though, with five golfers – Ian Snyman (68), Luke Brown (70), Peter Karmis (68), Jared Harvey, whose 67 was the low round of the day, and JJ Senekal (68) – just one stroke back on three-under.

There are four more golfers on two-under, including overnight leader Dylan Naidoo, who took an eight on the par-five fifth on his way to a 74 on Thursday.

“My game is definitely feeling very good,” Joubert said. “It was definitely tougher out there today, the wind picked up and the flags were in more tricky positions too.

“The front nine is tough because the wind is mostly across the holes and very tough to read, while the back nine has some holes into the wind and some with the wind. And the wind direction is swirling so it’s tough to read.

“So my back nine was a bit more up-and-down, but I feel I can hit the shots and get a score out there,” Joubert said.

Back-to-back birdies on the fifth and the par-three sixth saw Joubert reach the turn in one-under 34, and he also birdied the par-five 10^th, before a trio of bogeys snuck on to his card on the back nine.

So many potential challengers are lurking with 16 golfers within four strokes, but the pressure of trying to win his first Sunshine Tour title is probably the biggest threat to Joubert in the final round.

“I also led going into the final round of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series at Humewood last year, but there was a lot of rain, it was hard golf and I did not hit the shots I wanted to,” Joubert said.

“But I learnt how I need to compose myself in a final round, and then two weeks ago at the Fortress Invitational at Ebotse I shot 69 in the final group on the final day.

“So I’ve had my first couple of top-10s on tour in the last couple of months and now it’s all about keeping my mind calm and playing good golf in the final round,” the 28-year-old Joubert, who represents Waterkloof Golf Club, said.

Since the inaugural Nedbank Golf Challenge in 1981, the Gary Player Country Club course has been at the heart of what has made this tournament one of the most iconic and enduring in world golf.

This past weekend, a select group of sponsors and media were given the opportunity to play the golf course in the traditional Final Round before it is closed until the world’s best professionals arrive here for the tournament week of 10-13 November, 2022.

For Ken Payet, Tournament Director of the Nedbank Golf Challenge, this is the moment they have patiently waited for since the last Nedbank Golf Challenge in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, and his team is hard at work around the clock to ensure that one of world golf’s most impressive golf courses built in the crater of an extinct volcano in the Pilanesberg mountains is at its usual explosive best for the 40^th edition of “Africa’s Major”.

“Our whole team is very excited and we can’t wait for tournament week now. We are three weeks away from celebrating the 40^th edition of this iconic tournament. After a two-year absence due to COVID-19 it’s so satisfying seeing the grandstands and hospitality up, and more importantly the team out there on the golf course preparing this magnificent course for the challenge to come,” said Payet.

The Gary Player Country Club course is kept in pristine condition year-round. But with only a few weeks to go to the biggest tournament it hosts, the golf course is closed to allow the maintenance staff to condition it to a level of near natural perfection.

“Our planning for the entire year is built around making sure the golf course peaks in its conditioning for tournament week. There is a dedicated team that is paying the closest attention to this golf course every single day. They are on the golf course at five o’clock in the morning and leave at four o’clock in the afternoon.

“We also need Mother Nature on our side. We rely on a good amount of rain in order to make sure we have a decent level of rough. So with a bit of rain still to come, I’ve no doubt that the golf course will once again be in perfect condition come tournament week.”

The golf course is famed as providing a true test of strategy and one which since the first Nedbank Golf Challenge in 1981 has withstood the advancements in golf equipment technology and generations of elite professionals.

“From a set-up perspective we always want to test the golfers because we never forget that we are hosting the world’s best golfers. These are professionals who play incredible golf week in and week out around the world. So we need to make sure they are fairly tested.

“But we always strike the balance in ensuring that the set-up provides the kind of exciting golf the fans want to see. We had record crowds in 2019 of 76 000 people. If we can break that record this year it would be fantastic. These are passionate golf fans who want to see the best golfers playing the best golf. So from a set-up perspective we will give them that.”

From now until tournament week, Payet and his team will focus on the final touches both on and off the course as they prepare to welcome back thousands of golf fans for the first time since 2019.

“The bulk of the infrastructure is up. From a golf course perspective, the grand old lady just needs a bit of a break from daily golf for three weeks. This will allow the golf course team to pay attention to the finer details and the detailed conditioning the world’s best players have come to expect from our golf course.

“And then we cannot wait to see the fans back here enjoying the very best that the Nedbank Golf Challenge and Sun City has to offer.”

Tickets for the Nedbank Golf Challenge, starting at R40 for the Pro-Ams and R250 for Tournament Rounds, are available here, while Hospitality Packages for the Circa Champions Club, Circa Pavilion or Circa 18^th Green can be purchased here. The 2019 edition of the Nedbank Golf Challenge delivered record attendance figures and sold-out hospitality.

BALLITO, KwaZulu-Natal – The wind got up on the back nine but so did Dylan Naidoo as the promising young golfer soared to the top of the leaderboard after the first round of the SunBet Challenge hosted by Sun Sibaya at the Umhlali Country Club on Wednesday.

Naidoo was level-par after the front nine, but blazed his way back to the  clubhouse with five birdies, picking up back-to-back shots on both the 10^th and 11^th  holes and the last two holes of his round, for a five-under-par 66.

This left him one stroke clear of the group of six golfers on four-under-par 67 – Nikhil Rama, Kyle McClatchie, Jaco Prinsloo, Rhys West, Richard Joubert  and Lindani Ndwandwe.

The patience the 24-year-old showed in not letting the back-to-back bogeys he made on the par-five fifth and par-three sixth holes lead to frustration was the most impressive aspect of his round.

“On the front nine the weather was pretty benign, but I knew the wind would pick up,” Naidoo said. “After the bogeys, you start thinking ‘I’m one-over on the easy bit where there’s no wind’, but I was playing super-solid golf and I’d had a couple of unlucky breaks.

“So I just needed to keep playing the way I’d been playing and it all fell into place nicely on the back nine. I’ve been playing really well lately and it’s just that final part on the scoreboard that’s lacking.

“But you can’t force things, you have to let the score happen. You can’t take on flags that you don’t need to because that just leads to compounding errors instead of multiplying birdies.

“You don’t have to play perfect golf to be at the top of the leaderboard, and I’ve shown nice progression in understanding that. Long may it continue,” Naidoo said.

Umhlali Country Club was established in 1960 as a nine-hole course, but the acquisition of the design services of Peter Matkovich in 1970 led to the birth of the current 18-hole course.  It may be short, but it is undulating and there is plenty of water, so the golfers are going to earn their keep in this three-round, R1 million Sunshine Tour event.