Slatter, Kok slay giants at champs
ON another balmy day at the Humewood Golf Club, unheralded Keaton Slatter and Dylan Kok were a picture of mental calmness as they played their way into the quarterfinal of the Sanlam South African Amateur Championship yesterday.
Slatter, from KwaZulu-Natal, eliminated reigning English Amateur champion Dan Brown and former SA Stroke Play champion Jason Smith to reach the last eight, while Kok, from Gauteng North, sent reigning SA Stroke Play champion Edgar Catherine packing.
Slatter had some giant butterflies when he learnt he was facing Brown in the second round.
“I never expected to get past him, because he is a top-ranked English player and this is my first SA Amateur,” he said.
Kok needed 22 holes to beat Ruan Groenewald in the second round, but the 19-year-old denied Catherine, from France, a stab at the coveted double when he took the match at the 18th. The remaining South Africans left in the draw are Caylum Booth and Christo Lamprecht, from the Southern Cape, and Mpumalanga’s Andre van Heerden.
Boon beat Brandon Cloete 3 and 2 and progressed to the top eight when Richard Joubert, from Gauteng North, conceded at the 13th due to a migraine.
He takes on Liam Johnston, from Scotland, whose second match against defending champion Craig Ross ended at the sixth hole.
Ross, also from Scotland, conceded due to illness and Johnston whipped Robert Foley, from Switzerland, 6 and 5 to earn his berth in the quarterfinal.
Van Heerden downed Combrinck Smit 4 and 3 in the third round to set up a clash against England’s Joseph Long.
Long downed fellow Brit James Walker 4 and 3 in round two and Luca Filippi 3 and 2 in the third round.
In the last match out yesterday, 16-year-old Lamprecht ousted recent Sanlam Cape Province Open champion Garrick Higgo 1-up after he knocked out fellow Southern Cape golfer Andre Nel 3 and 2 in the second round.