He might not be in the lead after his opening eight-under-par 64 on Thursday, but Pieter Moolman has the satisfaction of having gone bogey-free at Humewood Golf Club in the first round of the Nelson Mandela Bay Championship.
Moolman had six birdies and an eagle on his blemish-free card, and he trails leader Adam Blomme of Sweden by one stroke. That was after the Swede continued his recent great form in South Africa in the tournaments co-sanctioned by the Sunshine Tour and the Challenge Tour with his nine-under 63 with an eagle, eight birdies and a bogey. A shot behind Moolman on seven-under in a share of third were South African Anthony Michael, Craig Howie of Scotland, France’s Ugo Coussaud, England’s Jack Singh Brar and Henric Sturehed of Sweden.
“I’ve been hitting the ball really well over the last little while,” said Moolman, “so when the putting comes right, I feel I can shoot 67, 66… even 64. And there was really only a gentle breeze by Humewood standards, maybe 20 km/h, so it was fairly easy to deal with.”
Even so, taming a course like Humewood like that takes some doing, and sets him up nicely to go low a second time in a row with an early tee-off time for his second round.
And with his eagle coming on the 11th into the wind and off the left, he has the confidence to get out to chase a good score. “The forecast is for the wind to blow quite strongly on Saturday, so I’ll be looking to take advantage while I can,” he said. “I hit a good drive into the wind in 11, and hit the approach to 14 feet.
“Most of my birdies today came from good putts, but I did hit a couple close too”
Behind Moolman, the next best of the South Africans were James Hart du Preez, Trevor Fisher Jnr, Casey Jarvis, JJ Senekal, Luca Filippi and Jaco Prinsloo, all on six-under and in a share of eighth with seven other players on a bunched leaderboard at the top end.
Moolman might be chasing a good second round, but he’s not going to waste too much energy focusing on how well Blomme is playing. While the Swede missed the cut in the Bain’s Whisky Cape Town Open, he was second in the Dimension Data Pro-Am and shared seventh in the SDC Open last week to top the Road to Mallorca as this early juncture of the season. “I can only do what I can do,” said Moolman, “and if that goes well, I can start looking at guys around me. But that’s down the line a bit right now.”
