Too little too late for SA Juniors

A talented squad of four young players, representing the South African Junior Golf Foundation, finished 7th in the Toyota Junior Golf World Cup, a 72 hole stroke play team competition, played at Chukyo Golf Club just outside the city of Nagoya, Japan.

The South Africans, all of whom are 18 years of age or younger, finished with a six under par team score of 846, sixteen shots behind winners Argentina.

The team was made up of Riekus Nortje (Southern Cape), JG Claassen (North West), Shaun Smith (Border) and Haydn Porteous (Central Gauteng).

The final round was played today.

But it was a case of too little too late for the South Africans, from whom much was expected.

Struggling through the first two days, in a competition format where the best three scores in each round count, from four players in a team, none of the South Africans managed to do anything better than one under par for 18 holes. At the end of the second day they were languishing in 11th place, eleven over par.

However it all changed over the last two rounds. Recording team scores of 204 (nine under par) and 205 (eight under par), for the 3rd and 4th rounds respectively, the South Africans played the last 36 holes five shots better than any other team. They were seventeen under par for 36 holes!

But this was not enough to make any impression on the superb Argentians who dominated the top of the leaderboard throughout the competition.

In the individual competition Kyoung-Hoon Lee (Korea) won the Maruyama Cup with a 72 hole total of 270, fourteen under par. He was followed, four shots back, by Tomas Cocha (Argentina).

The best South African was Riekus Nortje who finished 13th with a 72 hole total of 281, three under par.

Final Scores:

Toyota Junior Golf World Cup supported by PAL
Chuyko Golf Club (in Japan) (Par 71)

830 – Argentina (208,208,209,205)
833 – United States (211,207,207,208)
834 – England (211,209,209,205)
839 – Korea (217,205,209,208)
840 – Mexico (208,213,216,203)
846 – South Africa (219,218,204,205)
847 – Sweden (215,217,209,206)
849 – Australia (216,209,211,213), Chinese Taipei (211,206,214,216)
851 – Portugal (215,215,204,217)
870 – Canada (226,227,202,215)
874 – Norway (218,225,216,215)
887 – Uruguay (228,224,216,219)

Individual Competition (Maruyama Cup)

270 – Kyoung-Hoon Lee (KOR) (71,68,66,65)
275 – Tomas Cocha (ARG) (71,68,69,67), Tomohiro Umeyama (JPN) (71,68,67,69), Santiago Gavino (MEX) (66,68,72,69)
277 – Max Smith (ENG) (71,71,68,67)

South African players’ scores
281 – Riekus Nortje (72,73,67,69)
284 – Haydn Porteous (74,74,68,68), JG Claassen (73,71,69,71)
288 – Shaun Smith (74,75,71,68)