WHAT’S ON SA OPEN

WITH three wins and a further three top10 finishes this season, England’s Matt Wallace is among the favourites to grab the South African Open title when the tournament tees off at Randpark Golf Club on Thursday.

The 28-year-old will look to follow in the footsteps of countryman Chris Paisley, who edged out SA’s Branden Grace for the title at Glendower earlier this year.

This year’s SA Open is being staged at Randpark for the first time since 2000 when Swede Mathias Gronberg won the tournament. It has merged with the Joburg Open, which was played at this same venue exactly a year ago and where India’s Shubhankar Sharma secured his maiden European Tour win.

Wallace, pictured, goes into the tournament on the back of his best season on the European Tour. In March he won the Indian Open and followed that up with a second victory of the year at the BMW International Open in June. His third win came in September at the Made in Denmark championship.

Wallace also secured top-10 finishes in the last two events of the 2018 season’s Race to Dubai – at the Nedbank Golf Challenge (tied fifth) and at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai (tied second). While Wallace has good form going into the tournament he can expect some stiff competition from the other 239 players, among them a host of South Africans looking to bag their home crown.

Among the local players looking for a first SA Open title and a good finish to the year is Erik van Rooyen, who was runnerup to Sharma at Randpark last year.

As was the case at the Joburg Open 12 months ago, the players will all play one round each on the two courses at Randpark – Firethorn and Bushwillow – before the final two rounds are contested on the Firethorn course only.

Dylan Frittelli will also fancy his chances having enjoyed a good run at the Mauritius Open, where he finished in a tie for fifth. Justin Harding, too, is in good form after being in the running for the title until the final round on Sunday, but he’ll be happy with his fourth-place finish. All of SA’s leading golfers, among them Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Dean Burmester, Ernie Els and a host of others, will tee it up on Thursday. |