Ruan de Smidt overcame a horrible run of form with a superb bogey-free eight-under-par on Thursday at Zebula Golf Estate to be one off the lead after the first round of the SDC Open co-sanctioned by the Sunshine Tour and the Challenge Tour.

His eight birdies saw him one shot off the pace which was set by Switzerland’s Joel Girrbach who carded his nine-under at Elements Private Golf Reserve. The first two rounds of the tournament will be played on each of the two courses, and the weekend’s rounds will be decided at Zebula after the cut is made after the second round.

De Smidt, who has made just three cuts since March last year, got things going the way they were going for him when he won the Sunshine Tour’s Rookie of the Year title in 2012 from Daniel van Tonder. He shared second with Clement Sordet of France, who also shot his 64 at Zebula.

“I got a new driver at Pecanwood two weeks ago, and the last three weeks, I hit it very straight,” said De Smidt. “That’s something I have not done for the last couple of years. Keeping it in play is making it a lot easier, and my putting is really nice. I’m slowly building confidence again.”

He carded a 65 in the opening round of last week’s Steyn City Championship, and that gave him that much-needed confidence that he’s brought with him into this week. “I didn’t hit a lot of fairways but was fortunately never out of play,” he said. “It never really looked like I was going to make a bogey. On one hole where I missed the green I chipped in. So I felt I was pretty solid. I wasn’t sure what to expect from my game and then made a birdie on my second hole (the 11th) and went from there.”

Behind De Smidt, Marco Penge of England was in fourth on seven-under, with five-players on six-under. Nicolai Kristensen of Denmark was one of those players, and the other four were South Africans JJ Senekal, Ruan Conradie, Jake Redman and Deon Germishuys.