Gregory

Havret

The veteran Frenchman finished second at Final Stage to grab one of the 28 places on offer at Lumine Golf Club but is currently down at 180th on the Race to Dubai. The three-time European Tour winner has generally been a consistent cut-maker and made it to the weekend at least 15 times every season from 2010 to 2018. But he dipped below that figure in 2018 (13-of-27) and lost his card. This time he’s actually made three of five cuts although those final finishes were T49, T54 and T66. He did at least end on a positive note before the COVID-19 suspension, closing with a 66 in the Qatar Masters. Havret has managed just two top tens since the start of the 2017 season.

A ninth visit to the venerable course for the Frenchman whose record is a curious one with a split right down the middle. His first five visits were solid with not one missed cut and three top 25 finishes, culminating in T6 in this event in 2011. However he then missed three cuts on the trot, recording two 80s and a 79 in those six rounds. It is an oddity that the first time he missed the cut he hit more fairways than in his five full appearances (82.1%) and then in his next two he found record lows (42.9%). This season he had no full card and has been playing both the top two tours. He was a semi-finalist in the recent Belgian Knockout and then reached the final 32 in last week’s Andalucia Costa Del Sol Matchplay 9, a similar format and crucially up the road from Valderrama.

Disappointment for the Frenchman in not going a little deeper on Sunday afternoon but he’ll take the confidence boost as well as the points he gains. He advanced from the stroke play section only T24 with a 4-under total, but was a strong opponent on Saturday, if maybe not the heaviest scorer as he advanced with totals of 1-under, 2-under and 1-over. He dispatched Marcel Siem with a 3-under score in the quarter final but ran out of steam in the afternoon adding 1-over to stumble against Darius Van Driel in the semi and a repeat in the bronze match saw him bested by Ewen Ferguson. A first ET top five in 18 months but only a second in five years.

The Frenchman has limited starts this season having lost his full card last year after 18 years at the top. Back in 2000 he preceded that long run with just the one season on the Challenge Tour and his first start? In this tournament (at Muthaiga) and he was T3. Four years later he very nearly won the Dunhill Championship at altitude at Houghton. And his last two starts on the Joburg high veldt have had promising starts: T1 after a R6 in Pretoria this time last year, a 67 for T17 in December’s South African Open. Against all of that he hasn’t has a top 20 since the Qatar Masters last year. Perhaps the fact he didn’t even get to play there this season (i.e. last week) will provoke a good effort this week.

The Frenchman finished T57 and T32 on his first two visits to Leopard Creek, missed three cuts in a row from 2012 to 2015 and took T44 last time. Despite not pulling up any trees at the Gary Player course, recent renovations which have firmed up the greens could play in his favor if he can sharpen up his iron play to previous levels. The 42-year-old does actually own a second place in this event although that was at Houghton in 2004. He was also runner-up at the 2005 South African Open. A T15 in last year’s Tshwane Open shows he can still perform well in the country although he lost his card last year after finishing 135th on the Race to Dubai, hence the invite. He’s still managed to play twice already on this season’s RTD, finishing T39 at the Mauritius Open and missing the cut in last week’s South African Open despite an opening 67.

Havret beat English pair David Horsey and Seve Benson at Murcar Links Golf Club in the tournament’s inaugural edition before being thumped by Michael Hoey so will look to go deeper at Archerfield Golf Links this week. The Frenchman takes on 309th ranked Roope Kakko in round one (10:15 local time Thursday) so has an obvious chance to progress. Two of Havret’s three European Tour wins came in Scotland (2007 Scottish Open, 2008 Johnnie Walker Championship) so he has some special memories to draw on. As for current form, he’s quietened since back-to-back top 10s in March although the veteran has cashed in three of his last four starts.

There was little hint that the Frenchman could join the pacesetters after he kicked off his afternoon lap of Crans-sur-Sierre with a bogey-5 and four pars. But he connected birdies at Nos. 4-6 and picked up four shots on the back nine via par breakers at 10, 12, 14 and 18. Havret hit 15 greens in regulation on the way to his 64 which was just one more than his best on the scenic par 70. That 63 came three years when he posted T7. This is his lowest opening 18 of the year by four shots while it’s worth noting that the only two times he’s broken 70 in round one this season he’s gone on to register a top 10.

The Frenchman has cashed in seven of the previous nine and enjoyed his best moment in 2011 when closing with a 64 to finish in third spot. His only other top 25 was T22 in 2010. Havret didn’t make the cut in last week’s British Masters but before that had enjoyed some good form with T18 in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and T7 at the Porsche European Open. Those two results moved him into the top 100 in the Race to Dubai and he currently occupies 88th spot. That’s very much in line with what we’ve come to expect in recent years, Havret’s money list finishes reading 85-84-71-100 the last four seasons.

The Frenchman will hope the break won’t have taken the edge off his game which looked sharp in Malaysia where he was third on the All-Around stats. That result marked a return to form after he’d gone MC-57-MC through the Desert Swing. Havret has played in just one previous Tshwane Open at Pretoria but missed the cut in 2015 after rounds of 70-74. He’s missed plenty of cuts in South Africa in recent years (six of last eight) but did manage T18 in the 2015 Africa Open and has twice finished runner-up in the country although the last of those was the 2005 South African Open.

It actually threatened to be worse than that but the Frenchman birdied his final two holes to finish at 7-under 135, now three behind leaders Alexander Bjork and Scott Jamieson. After an opening birdie, Havret’s struggles started at 15 where he swallowed a double bogey-6. He wiped out that setback with circles at 16 and 18 but tripped up again on his second nine with dropped shots at 2 and 5. An over par round beckoned until the 40-year-old birdied 8 and 9 for the second day running to keep the leaders in sight.