Riekus Nortje moved top of the Dimension Data Pro-Am pile after a flawless nine-under-par 63 at the Outeniqua course at Fancourt.
He made seven birdies and an eagle to put himself a shot clear of Justin Walters, and another ahead of Jaco van Zyl, who also both completed their opening rounds on Outeniqua.
The players play a round on each of Outeniqua, The Links at Fancourt and Montagu ahead of the cut, and final round action will be over Montagu on Sunday.
For such a successful courtship, Nortje’s technique had an element of hit-and-miss about it.
‘My game’s been feeling quite good the last little while, but I just couldn’t get everything together,’ he said.
‘There is always some little aspect that is off, so today I just decided to hit and what happens, will happen.’
The relaxed approach paid off immediately.
‘I thought about hitting four-iron off the tee on one,’ he said. ‘I decided against it and took driver. I was probably about 30 yards short of the green, hit a great pitch to about four or five feet and made the putt. I hit the green in two on the second and I holed quite a long putt. That was already a great start. I made another long putt for birdie on the third. It was a dream start.’
It’s easy to let such a good start slip away, but Nortje had just the right amount of persuasive power to keep things going.
‘You can get ahead of yourself very quickly with a start like that, so I just tried to take it one shot at a time and that worked really well for me,’ he said. ‘I had a tough par-three after the first three holes. I hit a solid shot there, made a solid two-putt and then I hit a great second on the fifth. So that kind of kept the momentum going, but I did have to keep myself calm after the fast start.’
Nortje, who has won just once on the Sunshine Tour, in the 2017 Mopani Redpath Zambia Open in Kitwe, has had a rough time of it in the 2018-19 season, making just five cuts with a best finish of a share of seventh back in June last year at Sun City.
He’s only too aware what this fast start means for him this week. ‘It was very important to get a good start on Outeniqua,’ he said. ‘Montagu is playing tough at the moment, with the greens a little bit firmer, but they’re new greens. There have been some low scores there, so the scores are out there. You’ve just got to put your head down and grind.’
The best round on Montagu came from England’s Toby Tree with his six-under-par 66.
‘I’m very pleased with that round,’ he said.
‘I missed the cut by one in each of the last two weeks. I’ve been working hard after being injured at the end of last year. I’ve been playing alright, just not holing any putts. I got off to a frustrating start, but I just hung in there and got rewarded at the end.
‘The greens are firm on Montagu. Luckily, I drove it well – I only missed one fairway all day, and the one I did miss made it difficult to keep on the green because they were so firm.’
Tree’s round at Montagu was matched by Sweden’s Philip Eriksson.
At the challenging par-73 Links at Fancourt, Ireland’s Neil O’Briain carded a bogey-free six-under-par 67.
Combined scores (The Links is par-73; Outeniqua and Montagu are par-72):
-9 – Riekus Nortje
-8 – Justin Walters
-7 – Jaco Van Zyl
-6 – Neil O’Briain, Toby Tree, Philip Eriksson, Julien Brun, Jbe’ Kruger
-5 – Laurie Canter, Steve Surry, Anthony Michael
-4 – Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Neil Schietekat, Michael Palmer, Dean Burmester, Jaco Ahlers, Ruan de Smidt
-3 – Vaughn Groenewald, MJ Viljoen, Jacques P de Villiers, Jean-Paul Strydom, Antoine Rozner, Cormac Sharvin, Mark Williams, Ockie Strydom, Fredrik From, Jack Harrison
-2 – Heinrich Bruiners, Michael Hollick, Richard Bland, Martin Rohwer, Estiaan Conradie, Merrick Bremner, Hennie Otto, Daniel Greene, Darren Fichardt, Jeff Winther, Ugo Coussaud, Tyrone Ferreira, Christiaan Basson, Bryce Easton, Luke Joy, Ryan Cairns, Dawie Van der Walt, Callum Mowat
-1 – Kyle McClatchie, Jaco Prinsloo, Garth Mulroy, Stephen Ferreira, MJ Daffue, Matthew Jordan, George Coetzee, Zander Lombard, Kyle Pilgrim, Benjamin Follett-Smith, Luke Jerling, Jake Redman, Jean Hugo, Ross McGowan, Jason Viljoen, Chris Cannon, Rhys Enoch, Sean Bradley
Par – Jacquin Hess, Jared Harvey, Daniel van Tonder, Lyle Rowe, Rhys West, Wynand Dingle, Pieter Moolman, Erhard Lambrechts, Ulrich van den Berg, Thriston Lawrence, JC Ritchie, David McIntyre, Derick Petersen, Philip Geerts, Dylan Kok
+1 – Hennie du Plessis, Tyrone Ryan, Jacques Blaauw, Doug McGuigan, Jonathan Agren, Bradley Neil, Robin Dawson, Bennie van der Merwe, Victor Lange, Madalitso Muthiya, Breyten Meyer, Coert Groenewald, Scott Campbell, Keith Horne, Duane Keun, Aubrey Beckley, Matias Calderon, Chris Hanson, Wallie Coetsee, Gian-Marco Petrozzi, Jake Roos, Francois Coetzee
+2 – Anton Haig, CJ du Plessis, Harry Ellis, Trevor Fisher Jnr, Rourke van der Spuy, Jerome Lando Casanova, Irvin Mazibuko, James Pennington, Lindani Ndwandwe
+3 – Keenan Davidse, Matthew Carvell, Louis Albertse, Ruan Conradie, Ben Mannix, Allan Versfeld, Michael Schutz, Herman Loubser, Andrew Curlewis, Andrew van der Knaap, Mohammad Rauf Mandhu, Ian Ansett, Martin Rominger, Alan McLean
+4 – Michiel Bothma, Bryce Myburgh, Andre De Decker, Francesco Laporta, Andre Nel, Don Gammon, Phumlani Maluka, Jade Buitendag
+5 – James Kamte, Yubin Jung, Franklin Manchest, Luke Trocado, Allister de Kock, Marthin Scheepers
+6 – Teaghan Gauche, Theunis Bezuidenhout, Colin Nel, Toto Thimba, Peter Karmis, Teboho Sefatsa, Andrew Georgiou, Titch Moore, Thabang Simon, Ian Snyman, James Adams, Damon Stephenson
+7 – Clancy Waugh, Andrew Odoh, Tyler Hogarty, Mitch Waite, Gerrit Foster, Basil Wright
+8 – Chris Swanepoel
+9 – JJ Senekal, Robert Wiederkehr, Keagan Beyer
+10 – Matthew Rushton, Ryan Tipping
+11 – Fezekile Kana
