Daniel

van Tonder

Good for his eighth career victory on the Sunshine Tour, Van Tonder needed some Sunday heroics on his way to his SA Open Championship title. Turning in 3-under 33, the 30-year-old found another gear on the back-nine. Making four birdies – two of which came on the final three holes – against zero bogeys, van Tonder edged out Oliver Bekker by one-stroke. This marked Van Tonder’s second victory this calendar year as he won the Kenya Savannah Classic back in March in a playoff over Jazz Janewattananond for his first career win on the then European Tour.

Fellow South African Daniel van Tonder won the event on home soil at Gary Player Country Club, carding a 7-under 65 for the lowest score of the final round and finishing at 16-under 280 to beat Oliver Bekker (66) by a shot. Bezuidenhout shot 67 on Sunday and finished T-6. The tournament was originally part of the DP World Tour schedule but was changed to a solely Sunshine Tour event following sweeping travel restrictions due to the new COVID-19 variant, and South Africans made up the majority of the field. The 27-year-old Bezuidenhout recently finished 40th in the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai after a T-32 in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. On the season, he made 13 cuts in 13 starts with one top 10. In PGA Tour action, he’s made three starts in the new season with a T-15 at the Mayakoba. He missed the cut at the Houston Open in his most recent start.

The South African orchestrated this round with steady striking off the tee, splitting 10-of-14 fairways. That alleviated a lot of stress on approach and from there he walked away a bit unsatisfied with his conversions on the greens. “Left a few putts out there, but other than that, happy with the performance. I was consistent. I was in trouble a few times but managed to muscle it out there a few times, but recovered from that, so happy.” DVT later added that he thought he left about four shots out on the course in round one, as well. In his mind, he should be in double digits by now but in reality it’s tough to complain about 6-under at the midpoint of a major. Playing his fifth career event on the PGA TOUR, his previous best position after any round was T25 (T2 of the 2021 PGA Championship).

The South African missed the cut in 2012, 2015 and 2016 but his other two appearances at his home-soil event resulted in T15 in 2011 and T16 in 2013 and he was in the top ten with 18 holes to play each time. Other evidence we have of him performing well in these co-sanctioned events can be found from earlier this year when the 27-year-old was tied fourth in the Tshwane Open after closing 66-65. He’s played the last two weeks, missing the cut at the Mauritius Open and taking T59 at the South African Open while prior to that he’d recorded back-to-back top tens on the local Sunshine Tour.

Van Tonder qualified for the 78-man field after finishing second to Thomas Aiken on his home Sunshine Tour Order of Merit. The 24-year-old has no previous experience of Sheshan International Golf Club but did make the cut on his last trip to the Far East when 76th in the UBS Hong Kong Open. Overall, he’s 8-for-11 on the European Tour this season although he hasn’t managed a top 20 in any event played outside his native South Africa. As was the case at the WGC-Cadillac Championship when he shot 74-74-75-80 to post T66, this is very much a learning experience and a reasonable goal would be to better that finish.

That’s currently solo third on the leaderboard but four shots behind South African compatriot George Coetzee, who has a three-shot lead with three holes to play. Van Tonder was T8 at start of play but increased the size of his final cheque thanks to an afternoon lap of Pretoria CC featuring eight birdies against two bogeys. After trading a circle at 3 with a bogey at 6, Van Tonder went on a scoring burst with six birdies in eight holes (7, 9, 10, 12, 13 & 14). He gave one back at 15 but a walk-off gain saw him beat the previous clubhouse target by three shots. There are a couple of players who could still go past him but the 27-year-old looks all set to claim just the second top five of his career (21 starts) on the European Tour.

Aiken was the only golfer to eclipse four million rand. He did so in only nine events. Meanwhile, van Tonder, also of South Africa, touched 3.9-million rand thanks to a T55 at today’s South African Open Championship. He made a circuit-tying-high 25 starts. Aiken will be making his third start at Doral, but van Tonder has never competed in a PGA TOUR event.