Pfeifer leads SA Disabled Open despite having a ‘little trouble’ with his driver

A SECOND straight 70 yesterday sees super-steady American Chad Pfeifer, the defending champion, on top of the SA Disabled Golf Open leaderboard going into today’s final round at King David Mowbray Golf Club.

“A little bit of trouble with my driver for the second day running – I was square behind a tree because of a wayward teeshot on the 15th where I had to take an unplayable lie and that cost me one of two bogeys on the day.

“But my irons were really, really good and so was my short game,” said Pfeifer whose left leg was blown off in Iraq during a military operation while serving with the US Army.

He wanted to be a baseball star and was devastated that the accident had robbed him of his dream, but he then found golf and he now says it’s “saved” his life and given him a new purpose and a new challenge.

Pfeifer is on 4-under-par 140, with Spain’s 21-year-old one-legged wizard Juan Postigo lying second on 143 following a 74.

The ever-smiling Postigo, who was born without a right leg and refuses to wear a prosthetic limb, led after day one with a superb 69.

He is an amazing talent able to hit the ball prodigious distances in spite of balancing precariously on his one leg.

And in fact it wasn’t the long game that gave him trouble yesterday – it was his putting.

“I actually hit the ball better from tee to green today as opposed to yesterday, but that little white ball just didn’t want to go in the hole on the greens and I missed six pretty short putts,” chuckled Postigo who like his late, great countryman Seve Ballesteros favours a swashbuckling, gripit-and-rip-it approach to the game in spite of his apparent physical handicap although he doesn’t see it that way.

“Tomorrow I just have to make the right rolls on the greens if I am to win.

“I’m three behind but that’s okay because I prefer to chase rather than try and protect a lead.”

Pfeifer’s fellow American Kenny Bontz, also a leg amputee who like his countryman wears a prosthetic limb, is lying third on 149 following a 75 which means the US are in a commanding position in the separate World Cup team competition.

Lying fourth on 154 after a pair of 77s is veteran Christo de Jager from Uitenhage – he is the leading South African – while Adem Wahbi from Belgium and Canada’s Josh Williams, the 2014 SA Disabled Open champion, are in joint fifth spot on 155.