Ricky Hendler showed a touch of golfing maturity on Wednesday when he overcame a topsy-turvy front nine at Riviera on Vaal Country Club to card a three-under-par 69 and win the IGT Challenge Tour’s Race to the Sunshine Tour #3 by two shots.

Hendler, who won the IGT Race to Q-School 2021 season, and played the Sunshine Tour’s FBC Zimbabwe Open in Harare last week, made an eagle, a birdie, five pars, a bogey and a double-bogey on the front nine. But he held things together, and four birdies and a bogey on his homeward nine saw him home in 12-under-par for the tournament.

That was enough to hold off the challenge of DK Kim of South Korea, who carded a closing four-under-par 68 to get to 10-under-par. Ultimately, he was unable to stop Hendler, but he got one shot ahead of five players on nine-under-par who shared third. They were Burt Gildenhuys, LB Boshoff, Matthew Rushton, Karabo Mokoena and amateur Christopher Long.

Mokoena and Long shared the second-round lead with Hendler, and closed with a level-par 72 each. Gildenhuys was the man who produced the biggest charge with his seven-under-par 65 being the best round of the day. Boshoff had a 70 and Rushton had a 71 in the final round.

It was Hendler’s first tournament on the IGT circuit this season, and his victory takes him straight to third on the current Order of Merit, behind the two other winners on the tour this year, Werner Deyzel in second and the leader, Gerhard Pepler.

In riding out the storm of that opening nine, Hendler showed precisely the value of competing on the tour and how it can produce battle-hardened pros.