England amateur Todd Clements posted the lowest score of the second round to take the lead at the final stage of qualifying school currently under way at Randpark Golf Club.
The round was suspended for over three hours due to the threat of lightning as a storm gathered around the area on Tuesday, but that didn’t stop Clements.
Teeing off early in the morning on day two, the Englishman asserted himself with some authority as he produced a bogey-free four under on the front nine. After opening his round with a birdie which was followed by three straight pars, Clements squeezed in another birdie on the par-three 5th hole, made par on the following hole and birdies on the 7th and 9th sandwiched the par he picked up on the 8th.
‘I’m delighted, you know, to birdie half of the golf course, you don’t do that many times,’ he said.
‘I feel very comfortable. Me and my caddie, John, have been working well as a team and all credit to him because he’s helped me a lot along the way.’
After the birdie on the 9th, Clements picked up another birdie at the turn and made par on the next hole. A run of three straight birdies from the 12th to the 14th was abruptly ended when he dropped his first shot of the day on the par-three 15th, but by this time, a lot of good work had been done by Clements.
‘Well, in yards, I had about 172 to the flag,’ he said about that dropped shot on the 15th.
‘Just pulled an eight-iron there and into the bunker. Unfortunately, I had a horrid lie and I just left that in the bunker and had to up-and-down there to make bogey.’
He signed for an eight-under-par 64 in the second round and took his total for the week to 13 under.
Three strokes behind him lurked Louis Albertse who signed for a 65 while Theunis Bezuidenhout’s 66 was enough to catapult him to third position on six under following his level-par opening round on Monday. Duane Keun also made some progress as he signed for a 67 to give life to the 72 he shot on day one. He occupies fourth for the time being along with Thriston Lawrence and Jason Smith but the two didn’t finish their second rounds as play was again suspended due to bad light.
Sharing seventh were Sweden’s Philip Eriksson, Ruan Korb, Luke Trocado, Bruce McDonald of Zimbabwe and Wayne Stroebel, Jason Viljoen and Erhard Lambrechts who will return to finish the round on Wednesday.
Photo: Petri Oeschger/Sunshine Tour/Gallo Images
