Jacques Blaauw went very low on Wednesday with an eight-under-par 62 in the first round of the Sunshine Tour’s SunBet Challenge hosted by Wild Coast Sun to open up a two-stroke lead.
After turning in six-under-par 29 on the par-70 course, Blaauw was on 59 watch when he eagled the par-five 16th to move to 10-under for the round with the par-three 17th and the par-four 18th still to play. The 17th delivered 12 birdies and the 18th 13 for the 106-man field – and Blaauw didn’t make one on either.
In fact, he ended up making double-bogey on 18 with perhaps the worst golf he played all day.
“As early as the sixth, where I hit it to inside three feet, I started thinking about maybe making a 59,” said Blaauw, whose best round on the Sunshine Tour is a 61 he achieved in the final round of the Tshwane Open at Pretoria Country Club in 2015. “I was certainly going for it after making that putt on six to go to five-under, and then when I made birdies on seven and eight.
“But I three-putted the ninth to drop a shot and misjudged the wind on 10 to make bogey there. After that, I just looked to put up a good score, and then I made that eagle on 16. Suddenly, 59 was on the table again.
“I played a bad shot into 17, but two putted for par, and I hit a good drive up 18. When I walked to my ball in the fairway, I knew a birdie would get me to 59.
“I had 136 yards to the flag, and that’s a wedge for me. But it was uphill and into the wind, playing as if it was 145 yards, so I took a nine-iron nine. It must have caught a gust in the air, because I ended up 15 yards short. I duffed the chip, chipped again to five feet, and then I had my worst putt of the day for bogey.”
Despite that, Blaauw still led by two from rookie Jordan Duminy, playing partner Neil Schietekat, Keenan Davidse and Zambia’s Madalitso Muthiya. There were nine players on five-under-par in a share of sixth place, including the other of Blaauw’s playing partners, Harry Konig of England.
“We were quite the three-ball,” said Blaauw. “We kind of fed off each other, and, but for Neil’s unfortunate double-bogey on 16 when his approach just didn’t quite cover the water, he could have gone even lower. He was bogey-free to that point.”
Blaauw knows that there’s lots of work to be done, and that there are players in contention who can easily pull off the win – like Muthiya, whose sole Sunshine Tour win came on this course in 2016. “I like this course,” said Blaauw. “This is my best score on it, but I often seem to be able to go low here, and I always make an effort to play tournaments here. I seems to suit my game, and I really just want more of the same for the next two days.”
