It was a massive climax to a huge anticlimax for Dylan Naidoo on Sunday as he clinched the Investec South African Open Championship at a drenched Durban Country Club on the first extra-hole of a sudden-death play-off.
The biggest victory of his career came after the fourth round was first suspended and then cancelled due to a flooded course. Englishman Laurie Canter and Naidoo were locked together at the top of the leaderboard on 14-under-par after three rounds.
Disappointingly for the second-oldest national open championship in golf, rather than pushing through for a Monday finish – especially since most of the DP World Tour players were going to stay in South Africa for next week’s Joburg Open – the pair returned to the 18th for the play-off.
In the end, only one extra journey along the largely dried out 18th at Durban Country Club was necessary, with Naidoo hitting a stunning chip to within four feet. That put the pressure squarely on Canter, who had outdriven Naidoo by about 15 metres on the short 290-mtre par-four.
Canter overcooked his chip fractionally, and was left with a putt from off the back of the green of about 15 feet, which he missed.
“That type of shot is my bread and butter, the low skipper,” said Naidoo of the shot which all but secured the title for him. “The boys who play practice rounds with me know I do that all the time. I didn’t have a lot of fear on the shot. It was actually a really nice shot for me to have at that moment. I was more worried about the putt. That putter went back like a little squiggly worm.”
No matter how the putter went back. It sent the ball straight and true into the hole, and Naidoo buried his face in his hands as the enormity of is achievement began to hit home.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “This comes after a lot of really difficult times, a lot of times that I thought I’d do this earlier in my career. This is a special moment for me, it’s a special moment for everybody here in Durban… it’s overwhelming.”
His pointed reference to the people of Durban was clearly a link to Sewsunker ‘Papwa’ Sewgolum, the South African professional of ethnic Indian origin who came second in the 1961 SA Open to Retief Waltmann. In 1965, when he won the Natal Open for the second time, he was forced to accept the trophy outside Durban Country Club in the rain.
The idiocy of that moment and others like it clearly animated Naidoo, and, hearteningly, huge crowds who followed him and cheered his victory in the rain at Durban Country Club to the rafters
“I said yesterday it felt like I was Tiger Woods,” he said. “There were so many people. All the energy that I had, I can’t thank everyone enough for coming out, yesterday and today.”
In addition to winning one of the great titles in world golf, like Sewgolum did in 1959, he has qualified for the Open Championship. The top three players not otherwise exempt already punched their tickets to Royal Portrush in July. With Canter already exempt, England’s Marco Penge and Darren Fichardt will join Naidoo in Ireland, with amateur Christiaan Maas and Branden Grace missing out despite sharing third with Fichardt because of Fichardt’s superior world ranking.
Maas was perhaps the most disappointed player in the field, despite winning the Freddie Tait Cup for the leading amateur in the South African Open for the second time to go with his 2022 triumph.
“I’m not really sure how to feel right now,” said Maas while receiving the trophy in the pouring morning rain. “I think knowing that I had won the Freddie Tait on Friday, or Saturday morning, I’d say I would have been happier if we’d played a little bit today. That’s especially after yesterday. I felt I played very well then, and I didn’t finish the way I wanted to.
“Standing here right now and knowing that it’s finished, and knowing that if I had played the last two holes to the standard I know I can play, I probably would have been in the lead, or somewhere close to it.”
Maas had a shot at becoming the first amateur since Denis Hutchinson in 1959 to win the South African Open, and cutting the tournament to 54 holes denied him the opportunity to give it a shot – a shot which looked entirely realistic for the second and third rounds.
“It’s a massive honour to win the Freddie Tait, but, still, I’m disappointed we couldn’t play today. The Freddie Tait was already in the back of my head. After playing pretty well yesterday with Laurie Canter, who’s leading, I was hoping we could play today… or at least tomorrow.”
For Naidoo, a GolfRSA National Squad member for three years from 2016, there is no such disappointment. He goes to the top of the Sunshine Order of Merit with just the Joburg Open and the two play-off events left on the schedule. If he holds on to that spot, there is more to come for the man who carried the Papwa torch.
