Wind causes more upsets at SA IPT
Southern Cape and Gauteng North came through a real battle of attrition in the three-club westerly wind to come out on the winning side at the 56th South African Inter-Provincial Championship, sponsored by Tempest, at the Fish River Sun Resort, on Wednesday.
Southern Cape edged out Western Province 6.5 – 5.5 and Gauteng North beat Ekurhuleni 7 – 5 to celebrate back-to-back victories at the Fish River Sun Resort, while a heated scuffle between Boland and defending champions Central Gauteng ended in a 6-all draw.
Southern Cape made easy work of their foursomes to lead 3 – 1, but Western Province unloaded a massive attack in the singles that forced the Garden Route side into submission.
“Western Province showed up in force and between Elton James, Gerlou Roux and Luke Trocado, they wiped out our lead very quickly,” said manager Billy Valentyn.
“One of our rookies, Hans-Jurie Human, played his socks off to beat Carlo O’Reilly 2-up, but then Ivan Williams lost to Paul Colditz at the last hole. We trailed 5 – 4 Province with just Brandon Cloete, Jade Buitendag and Andre Nel on the course and we were down in all three games.
“Things looked gloomy because we needed at two and a half points from them for the win. Brandon was still 1-down after he and Michael Sherriff both parred 16, but then he holed a 12-footer for birdie at 17 to square the game after getting out of the most horrible plugged lie and halved the game.
“Jade was really impressive in that westerly wind against Altin van der Merwe, who is a great wind player, and he beat Altin 2 & 1 to tie the match.
“It was down to Andre to get us the win or at least a half point to tie. He was two up with five to play, but he had three bogeys in a row and Luca (Filippi) birdied 16 to square the game. They both parred 17, but Andre had to box a clutch putt to save par.
“I think making that putt gave him that little kick of confidence for the last hole and he drained another 12-footer for birdie to win the match for us. Province put up a helluva fight, but Andre, Brandon, Jade and Hans-Jurie guys showed a lot of heart out there when the stakes were down. I think this match will go down as one of the epic ones in their careers.”
Meanwhile Gauteng North and Ekurhuleni tied 2-all in the foursomes, as did Central Gauteng and Boland.
Richard Joubert, Andrew van der Knaap, Dylan Kok and Ruan Conradie struck the winning blows for Gauteng North while halves from Marco Loubser and Albert Venter helped the Daisies to a two point win.
Central Gauteng’s Tyrone Gibb, Jason Rossiter and Darin de Smidt scored their three points in the singles, while Pierre De Villiers, Karl Ochse and Cedric Rooi responded for Boland to keep the match at a draw and the status remained unchanged after the match between David Muller from Central and Neswill Croy ended all square and Garrick Higgo halved against Ryan Dreyer.
In Wednesday’s third round, Southern Cape face Ekurhuleni, Gauteng North play Boland and the defending champions will go up against a resurgent Western Province side.
A-SECTION RESULTS – ROUND 2
Western Province 5.5 vs Southern Cape 6.5
Gauteng North 7 vs Ekurhuleni 5
Boland 6 vs Central Gauteng 6
A-SECTION LOG
(Pos-Union-Played-Won-Drawn-Lost-Points-Matches won)
1 Southern Cape (2, 2, 0, 0, 4, 15.5)
2 Gauteng North (2, 2, 0, 0, 4, 14.5)
3 Ekurhuleni (2, 1, 0, 1, 2, 11.5)
4 Central Gauteng (2, 0, 1, 1, 1, 10.5)
5 Boland (2, 0, 1, 1, 1, 9)
6 Western Province (2, 0, 0, 2, 0, 11)
Written and released by Lali Stander on behalf of the South African Golf Association.