Nienaber will set the world golf scene alight

Iknow the final day of last week’s Joburg Open must have been heartbreaking for you. To have held a lead for so long only for victory to be snatched away at the death is hard to swallow, but I can assure you your day will come (and soon, I’m sure).

Most of the talk over the course of the tournament centered on your ability to hit to ball out of sight.

Your 439-yard ( or just more than 400 metre) drive on the parfive fourth at Randpark really got people to sit up and take notice.

To advance my ball 400-plus metres would, on most days, require a drive and a mid-iron, so I found it hard to believe you had clubbed yours that far until I saw it on TV.

My brother-in-law told me about it and I was convinced he had somehow mixed up the digits. “You mean 349 yards?” I asked.

“Nope, 439,” he confirmed, sending me off to look for the remote to catch the moment on a highlights reel.

I then watched extended highlights of the last day and while your prodigious distance off the tee was impressive, I realised there is a lot more to you than brute force.

While in Cape Town recently, I took a morning out to play nine holes with my niece’s husband.

He is built like a prop forward and smashes his drives prodigious distances, but more often than not they are either out of bounds or so wayward that he is very often stuck behind a tree.

Also, his temperament is not great and his short game sucks.

That was what so impressed me about you at the Joburg Open. You were so relaxed, you looked like you were out on a Sunday morning with your regular social fourball, and your chipping and putting was, by and large, exemplary.

With those attributes, I will bet good money you will not only record a big win very soon, but that you will also be a regular feature on the world golf stage for many years to come.

Go and get ‘em…