No-one to match red-hot Pace

IT IS no longer a question of who, but by how many at the South African Women’s Open at San Lameer. While many patrons were still recovering from a day of tennis nostalgia, Lee-Anne Pace was busy adding another chapter to her emerging status as a South African golf legend.

Pace’s surname has been proved to be so fitting this week on the South Coast of Natal, as she has simply run her own race in a championship that she is making a mockery of. After two rounds of play, the Mossel Bay star pupil is an imperious five shots clear of her would-be challengers.

In the recent history of the national women’s Open, tradition has dictated that the last day at least arrives with some sort of drama still waiting to be played out on the watery grave that San Lameer can be.

Yet Lee-Anne Pace has changed all that. Yesterday, in conditions that were not quite as balmy as the first day, she went about consolidating on the lead that she had so greedily grabbed on the opening morning, with a solid twounder 70 added to her six-under 66 on Thursday.

Yesterday, Pace was not as fluent as she had been the day before, but she again had the clutch of birdies on the front nine. Again she relished the short fourth hole, carding her second successive birdie. Going up the hill on the fifth, Pace made a mental error and paid for it with her only bogey of the day. She quickly made up lost ground on the final stretch of the opening nine, with birdies collected at the par-five eighth and then the shortish ninth hole. When she turned, Pace went onto autopilot, with a run of nine straight pars to snuff out any drama on the closing holes.

Pace was in the business mode that she will certainly employ again today, as she closes in on what should be the most dominant of her hat-trick of national victories. Behind her, the only realistic chance of a late challenge may come from Stacy Bregman, who had a mixed bag on day two. An opening half of 35, which included birdies on the 8th and 9th, matched playing partner Pace’s pair of shots gained.

But, on the homeward stretch, Bregman fell away, with back-to-back bogeys on 13 and 14 writing off another birdie. At three-under, and five shots behind Pace, she will need to go low, and cling onto the hope that Pace somehow takes her eye off the ball.

It is an unlikely scenario, given the mood that Pace is in. She is not even playing against the field anymore. Essentially, Lee-Anne Pace is playing against history now, and she should scribble a chapter of glory sometime this afternoon in the most emphatic fashion.

She has been imperious.