Rourke van der Spuy pulled off his third Sunshine Tour victory on Friday when he carded a closing three-under-par 69 at Gary Player Country Club to win the SunBet Challenge at Sun City by three strokes.

It was the culmination of an 18-month rebuilding process for the man who got his maiden win as a rookie in 2015, and his second three years later in 2018, and he held off an impressive array of chasers. Louis de Jager finished second, Jaco Prinsloo and Hennie Otto shared third, and Ockie Strydom, JJ Senekal and Louis Albertse were in a share of fifth.

“I can tell you that the latest win feels like the best of them all,” said Van der Spuy. “It will free me up to concentrate on the round in front of me in the next few tournaments on the tour, instead of having to worry about making the cut, or my position on the Order of Merit.”

He started the final round as if he meant to run away with things, making consecutive birdies on two and three. But he dropped consecutive shots on six and seven, before making birdie on the tough eighth, where he made double-bogey in the second round.

After turning in one-under 35, he made consecutive birdies again on 10 and 11, dropped a shot on 14, and birdied 17 to underline his victory.

“I made some putts this week,” remarked Van der Spuy. “I’ve always been known as a streaky putter, so it was good to back up my solid play off the tees and into the greens with some good putting. It was something that kept me in play all week, actually, which was gratifying.”

The upshot of it all was that He was able to rely on all the moving parts of his game in the face of the stern challenge posed by the Gary Player Country Club course, secure in the knowledge that his abilities and his temperament were enough to carry him home.

“It’s something that I have been working on for 18 months with my new coach, Shaun Coetzee,” said Van der Spuy. “It’s a very good place I find myself in, and the results towards the end of last season showed me that the work in progress was going to start paying dividends.”

Having decided not to travel to the Zimbabwe Open last month, he has played three tournaments of the four so far in the current season and is ninth on the Luno Order of Merit, with four of the players above him having played all four.

That’s not where his focus lies, though. “For now, it’s just good to e back winning again,” he said. “There’s nothing like that feeling.”