Trevor

Fisher, Jr.

Fisher Jr. joined Sam Horsfield, Jayden Trey Schaper, Thriston Lawrence and Jaco Ahlers, just one shot behind the leader Tapio Pulkkanen and one clear of Daniel Greene, Harry Hall, Johannes Veerman and Jack Senior. The listing of all those names is not incidental because only Fisher Jr. has tasted victory at this level. His front nine on the Firethorn Course at Randpark GC in Johannesburg was serene, witnessing six pars plus birdies at the fourth, fifth and sixth, but his back nine was a little more chaotic. He made bogeys at the 11th and 13th, posted a birdie in-between at the 12th and then added an eagle-3 at the 14th. His ET win came in the 2015 Africa Open, but he’s had just four top tens since, the last when T8 in the 2017 Trophee Hassan II.

Although he slipped a spot on the leaderboard after holding a share of the first-round lead, Fisher, Jr. should be content with his day’s work at Glendower GC. For the second successive round, his only blemish came via a bogey-5 at the 396-yard 11th hole. He responded to that with birdies on the two back-nine par 5s at 13 and 15 and that followed earlier circles at 4, 9 and 10. The local man was T8 in this event last year and also T7 in 2013 so that strong course form should stand him in good stead in the second half of the tournament.

Fisher has form figures of 8-15-7 in the three previous SA Opens held here and the good vibes came flooding back again today. A par-bogey start at 10 and 11 proved a temporary blip as he roared to the top of the leaderboard with a birdie blitz from the 12th. A first circle of the day there and another at 13 got him going and, after a par at 14, he reeled off five straight red numbers at 15, 16, 17, 18 and 1. After that it was pars to the clubhouse, including a 10ft save at 5. He last held a first-round lead at the Open de Espana in May 2015 after opening with a 65. Fisher, Jr. couldn’t keep the momentum going on that occasion and slipped back to finish T22.

Fisher Jr. closed with a 64 to post T7 in 2013, added T15 in 2015 and hoisted up a weekend score of 66-70 last year to take T8. In addition, he has two other top 10s at the venue when it’s hosted the Sunshine Tour’s BMG Classic so he’s a genuine course horse. Less encouraging is his current form if it can be called that. Fisher, Jr. closed his year down with T37 in October’s Portugal Open and prior to that had missed five cuts out of seven. He’ll hope that the return to one of his favorite venues provides a spark and it’s worth remembering that he’s won one of these co-sanctioned events before. That came at the 2015 Africa Open when he shot 24-under to secure his first and only European Tour win by a five-shot margin.

That top 10 came when the event was staged at Copperleaf although he looked set to improve on it when the tournament switched to Pretoria in 2015. Fisher, Jr. opened with a pair of 66s and added 69 in round three to top the leaderboard going into the final day. Sunday was a kick in the stomach though as he put it in reverse and fell back to T23 after a 75. He missed the cut last year. The South African tries his luck again having posted T16 in last week’s 54-hole Joburg Open. He carded three rounds in the 60s so looks to be rounding into some decent form again. In January, he reminded us that he’s always one to consider on home turf when taking fifth spot in the South African Open.

The South African winner of the 2015 African Open is currently 99th in the Race to Dubai, that ranking largely the result of one tournament, when he was T5 in the South African Open. He can go a long way to protecting his position with a good effort this week and has so far negotiated the Red Course challenge in style. He ticked birdies three times on each nine: at 11, 13 and 15 on the back (his first nine), then 4, 5 and 8 on the front. The reason he is not leading, rather than trailing Gregory Havret by one? A clumsy conclusion to the back nine which saw him make a double bogey-6 at the 16th and bogey-4 at the 17th, then fail to make any headway on the par-5 18th. He has figured in the top two at the halfway stage of a European Tour event on four occasions; he is yet to finish better than T4 having done so.

The South African headed into the week ranked 80th on the Race to Dubai and primed to take advantage of a weak field to improve on a lacklustre record on European soil. Thus far he’s doing very nicely. In the first round he notched six consecutive birdies from the ninth, but the second lap was rather more considered, even if eventually he tallied the same number of strokes. He began on the back nine and smoothed seven pars plus par breakers at 12 and 16. He opened the front nine with back-to-back red at 1 and 2, added another at 7, but had to make do with blue at the eighth, a second bogey-4 at the 215-yard par-3 of the week. When he signed his card he was one behind the clubhouse lead, but three back of the leader, Matt Wallace, on the live leaderboard.

The South African opened the 2015 season with a win in the Africa Open which earned him a European Tour card and finished that year 63rd in the Race to Dubai, but last year he was 124th and this year is 80th. The key to his struggles is that he is strong at home, but not so much elsewhere. In ten starts on the ET in South Africa since the start of 2015 he has five finishes of T15 or better, with that one win. In 38 starts on the European Tour elsewhere in that period he has just two T15 or better efforts. But the better news? One of them was in Portugal (the 2015 Portugal Masters) and the other was on his last start when T8 at the Trophee Hassan II.

Golf suddenly became hard again for the South African on Friday as he took 13 more swings at Real Club de Golf El Prat than in his opening 65. However, with most of the field struggling the damage wasn’t as brutal as it might have been and his fall down the leaderboard was limited to 15 places. Fisher, Jr. looked as if breaking 80 might be beyond him at one point but managed two birdies, a bogey and a par in his final four holes. He split 10 (of 14) fairways and found just six greens in regulation (a contrast to Thursday’s 17).

A South African, Thomas Aiken, won this tournament the last time it was held at El Prat in 2011 and Fisher, Jr. is in position to match his compatriot after a bogey-free opening round. The 35-year-old set the tone with birdies at two of his opening three holes, 10 and 12, and added another at 18. He bogeyed the first but then went on a tear with five par breakers in the next six holes. His set included birdies on all the four par 5s. Fisher, Jr. won his first European Tour event earlier this season and is 9-for-9 over the campaign. The victory came in the Africa Open and now he’s looking to build on that with another on the European mainland. Today, he split 10 (of 14) fairways and missed just one green in regulation.