Eleven South Africans, led by Haydn Porteous, have been tasked with continuing the country’s rich history at the Qatar Masters, writes WADE PRETORIUS.
The Doha Golf Club returns as host for the 20th time this week where Jeunghun Wang looks to defend his title. The young South Korean is bidding to follow in Branden Grace’s footsteps. SA’s No 1-ranked player remains the only player to have gone back-to-back at the Peter Harradine-designed course.
Grace cemented the path laid by Ernie Els in 2005. The Big Easy lifted the pearl trophy after a final round 65 to move past Henrik Stenson despite the Swede’s five-shot advantage overnight. That win helped Els to complete the Gulf double after his triumph at the Dubai Desert Classic the week before.
The winner’s list in Qatar includes Retief Goosen, who won in 2007 after holing a 30-foot eagle putt on the last for victory. Els and Goosen are joined by Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia, Paul Lawrie and Henrik Stenson.
The question now posed is who will take the baton passed from Els to Goosen and then picked up by Grace?
Porteous was the leading South African last week but never got into contention to challenge Joost Luiten and Chris Wood. Since his win at the D+D REAL Czech Masters last year, Porteous has struggled for consistency with a number of missed cuts and his best result coming at the 2017 NGC where he finished in a share of 12th place.
George Coetzee and Erik van Rooyen are back on the European Tour this week after supporting the Dimension Data Pro-Am in Fancourt. Both are ranked higher than Porteous and will be looking for a strong showing with the season no longer in its infancy.
Coetzee’s swing changes and new fitness regime paid dividends in the latter half of last season but now needs to kick on and get himself into the contending bunch late on Sunday.
Van Rooyen, who finished second to Shubhankar Sharma in the Joburg Open, is looking to a sound result to get his rookie season off and running. He decided to skip last week’s event in Oman, where he finished T3 at the season-closer on the Challenge Tour.
Also looking for a big week is Jacques Kruyswijk, another South African rookie, after he graduated from Q School. He will not be defending his Cape Town Open title this week so a positive showing in the gulf will go along way of making up for that. Kruyswijk has two top-10 finishes to his name in 2018, albeit on home soil, but he advanced to the weekend in Abu Dhabi and rarely pegs it up without the belief that he can win.
Darren Fichardt and Brandon Stone find themselves in similar positions as both start on Thursday on the back of three consecutive missed cuts.
Completing the South African hopefuls are Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Richard Sterne, Thomas Aiken, Zander Lombard and Justin Walters.
Photo: File
