Dlamini back to form

STRUGGLING with form for a few months now, Nobuhle Dlamini didn’t know what to expect when she stepped onto the first tee on Royal Johannesburg and Kensington’s East Course yesterday.

So the big-hitting Swazi golfer was delighted to play well and find herself in a threeway tie for the first round lead in the Sunshine Ladies Tour Open.

“I just trusted my swing and it paid off,” said Dlamini, who carded a two-under-par 70 to join Charlotte Ellis from England and Boland amateur Bianca Theron in pole position.

“I just picked a club, committed to the shot and executed it. The confidence built and it fed through to my short game, especially the putter. Golf is such a game of confidence and it’s great to be gaining some self-belief again.”

The leading trio could come under pressure from Ashleigh Simon, though.

A three-time winner last season, Simon lurks just one stroke off the pace in a tie for fourth with 14-year-old amateur Woo Ju Son.

South Africa’s Iliska Verwey and former Ladies European Tour champion Sophie Sandolo from Italy are a further stroke adrift.

Dlamini began with bogeys at the fourth and fifth holes, but minimised the damage with a birdie at the eighth and reeled in three more birdies on the back nine.

Dlamini struggled in her rookie season in Europe last year and returned with her confidence in tatters, but she is starting to again show the form that carried her to the number three spot in the World Amateur Golf Rankings in 2013.

Coming off a tie for third at the Cape Town Ladies Open last week, Ellis carried some confidence into yesterday’s first round and had five birdies, three bogeys with pars at the rest of the holes.

Theron started with a bogey, but gains at the sixth, eighth and 18th handed her a share of the lead.