In the end, it was a six-stroke victory for Merrick Bremner and Martin Rohwer in the Sunshine Tour’s Bain’s Whisky Ubunye Championship at Blue Valley Golf Estate, with their 10-under-par betterball final round taking them to 28-under-par for the 54-hole tournament.
With a 12-under-par opening betterball round, and a six-under foursomes score in the second round, the chasers were going to have to do some serious chasing on a course on which Bremner believed 30-under was not an unreasonable expectation for a pairing that is a formidable one in this format.
Bremner and Rohwer would have had some moments of unease early on in the round when Erhard Lambrechts and Combrinck Smit opened their pursuit with a birdie, an eagle and an albatross, all in the first three holes. Six-under through three holes after an opening three on the par-four first, a hole-in-one from Lambrechts on the second, and a two from Smit on the par-five third put them right in the frame.
Bremner and Rohwer had made two birdies in the first three to get to 20-under, but they were suddenly within reach, instead of four clear and going away.
But the 36-hole leaders knew they could go low enough to make any pursuers’ task a fruitless one, and they piled on three more birdies before the turn to make things pretty much a done deal as they reached 23-under.
Lambrechts and Smit eventually finished on 22-under after carding 11-under for the third round, and turning in eight-under 28. They were joined as runners-up by Jean Hugo and Hennie du Plessis, who also signed for a closing 11-under, with three eagles on the four par-fives driving their low round.
After the turn, it was cruise control for Bremner and Rohwer, especially after they eagled the par-four 10th. They picked up three more birdies in what was essentially something of a victory lap.
Dylan Mostert and Kyle Barker shared fourth with Darren Fichardt and George Coetzee after they carded 10-under and nine-under respectively to finish on 21-under for the tournament.
