Jaco Ahlers saved the emphasis of his superiority throughout the Sunshine Tour’s Tour Championship at Serengeti Estates for his closing shot on Sunday as he holed out from a greenside bunker to win the tournament by four strokes.
The margin may have been just one shot smaller than when he started the final round, but he had done the hard work ahead of the last 18 holes, and was able to ensure that his nearest challenger, the mercurial Casey Jarvis had too much to do to reel him in. In the end, a patchy one-under-par 71 was enough to hold off Jarvis’ two-under 70. Luca Filippi, Ryan van Velzen and Pieter Moolman shared third on eight-under, a yawning gap of nine shots behind Ahlers.
“I haven’t played a lot of four-rounders this year, so this took a lot out of me,” Ahlers laughed after his 11th win on the Sunshine Tour, which came a year and a day after his last victory at the Stella Artois Players Championship last season. “It’s always nice to win, whenever it might come,” said Ahlers.
It was a win which what is essentially his home away from home, when he bases himself away from his residence in George. “I love this place,” he said. “You can hear the kind of support I got, and that’s just incredible. I’ve always wanted to win this tournament and to do it with Abrie van Wyk, my sponsor, in the pro-am, means a lot. It’s a special place to win, at Serengeti. The course was immaculate. It’s great every year.”
While the truth is Ahlers didn’t have to do much in the final round, he seemed unsettled despite an early birdie on the fourth hole which took him six clear of Jarvis – and a Jarvis bogey on the fifth saw the lead gape out to seven. His tee shots were not as accurate as they had been through the week, and that made scrambling pars difficult.
It was a wayward tee-shot on the par-three ninth which left him in a short greenside bunker, and, when he was unable to get up and down to save par, he headed for the turn in level-par. Jarvis had made three birdies in a row from the sixth and he turned in two-under – and the chase seemed on for the youngster who won the Rookie of the Year race on the Sunshine Tour.
But Ahlers weathered that storm with steady play forcing Jarvis to make the running. And when the pursuer dropped on 11 and 14, while Ahlers birdied 14, the race was all but over. As Jarvis made two defiant birdies in a row on the final two holes, Ahlers had taken his foot off the pedal and was coasting home when he bogeyed the 17th.
And then came that bunker shot on the final hole, just to underline Ahlers’s class during the week.
