Cape Times

Who will tame this SA Open ‘beast’?

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IT'S been described as “strong”, “a beast”, and “massive”. At 7 462 metres, the Blair Atholl Golf & Country Estate course that hosts this week's Investec South African Open is the longest in DP World Tour history. And it is certainly going to be a worthy adversary for this star-studded field.

Considerin­g it was designed by Gary Player, the winner of a record 13 of his national Opens, it is perhaps only right that the field this week should expect a test worthy of the 112th South African Open.

When PGA Tour campaigner Dean Burmester, one of the longest hitters in the game, says it's a long course, that is also enough of a warning to the rest of the field ... “It's long. You'll see quite a few long hitters in contention this week for sure. Whoever is coming to watch, wear a good pair of trainers. But it's in great condition. The golf course lends itself to some good midiron play, and the greens are great,” Burmester said.

“Oh it's massive,” said last week's Joburg Open champion Dan Bradbury. “We're going to be putting the mid to long irons to work this week. Sometimes we tend to just use the top end and bottom end of the clubs in the golf bag, and the middle kind of gets forgotten about. I like a mix. This week it's nice to be hitting a lot of seven and six irons into greens. As much as it's harder it's nice to mix it up.”

Former Masters champion Charl Schwartzel believes a solid iron game will be key to success this week as he hunts a maiden win in his national Open following several near misses, and on a golf course where he used to have a home. “It's one of the longest golf courses in South Africa. I've always thought that it's a second shot golf course. The greens are the defence. They're big but they've got angles to them which means you need to be pretty precise with your distance control. Good iron play will serve you well,” he said.

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