SUN CITY, South Africa -- They may well have lost a city here, but Nick Price had no trouble finding exactly what he was looking for in the second round of the Dimension Data Pro-Am on Friday.
After a slow start to his round which saw him 1 over par through nine holes at the Lost City Golf Club, the Zimbabwean clicked into gear and worked his way to the top of the leaderboard with an impressive display of ball striking on a back nine which yielded four birdies for a 3-under-par 69 and a total of 5 under par.
Price leads the tournament by two strokes over a group of six players at 3 under.
The two courses again combined for an incredibly tough day, with the halfway cut falling on a staggering 7 over par ' the highest in the nine-year history of this event and certainly one of the highest in the history of the Sunshine Tour.
But after two days of brutal rough and tough pin placements, and with only 12 players under par for the tournament, Prices class is hard to ignore and his chances of a third win in this event impossible to overlook.
At the start of the week, Price spoke of his belief that a fourth major was still within his grasp at the age of 47, particularly The Open Championship and U.S. Open which will be played at Royal Troon and Shinnecock Hills, respectively, this year ' courses which suit Prices game.
His back nine performance at the Lost City on Friday certainly corroborated that.
I felt like I found some inspiration today, said Price, who last week paid his good friend David Leadbetter a visit in order to fine tune his game for what he hopes will be a good start to 2004. It was really nice to play well again. I havent played nine holes so well in quite some time. I did pretty well to turn 1 over, and then I played super on the back nine. I drove the ball well, hit my irons well, putted well. I had four birdies, but it could easily have been six or seven.
The birdies he did collect featured a 9-iron to 10 feet at the 10th, a two-putt from 25 feet on the par-5 11th, a 6-iron to 18 feet on the short 15th, and a two-putt from 35 feet on the par-5 18th.
Ive worked hard with David and went to see him a couple of times in the last two weeks to try and get off on the right footing this year. Last year it seemed like as the year progressed my game got worse and worse,’ he said. I really hope I will continue to hit the ball like I did on the back nine today. If I do I will have a good chance on the weekend.
Chris Williams, Grant Muller, Titch Moore, Adilson da Silva, Callie Swart and Darren Fichardt are all on three under. Des Terblanche carded the low round of the tournament, a solid 6-under 66 at the Lost City course, to finish at 1 under par.