Zander

Lombard

The 26-year-old South African was likely licking his chops at the midpoint with an untested name (Thriston Lawrence) being the only row between him and the top of the board. Lombard arrived with a pair of runner-up finishes on his DP World Tour resume while Lawrence had never posted a top 15 on the big stage. With the event shortened to 36 holes, Lombard never got his chance to make a run but it’s tough to complain about a runner-up finish. This result will earn him an exemption to play in the 2022 Open Championship at St Andrews and it will also pick him up plenty of Race to Dubai points.

The 26-year-old arrived with a bit of wind at his sails, posting top 30s in two of his last three starts on the DP World Tour. He is building on that momentum to start the week at Randpark Golf Club, firing a six-birdie 67 on day one before posting another 67 today. Lombard has dipped to 642nd in the OWGR after missing the cut in 17-of-29 events this calendar year but has always shown plenty of promise. The youngster also entered the week with top 15s in two of his last three trips to Randpark. Thriston Lawrence is the only name ahead of him on the board right now and he’s never posted a top 15 on the DP World Tour. That makes Lombard one of the favorites at the midpoint and right now finds himself at 4/1 on the live odds sheet.

The South African had a rough time in the middle of last season, finishing outside of the top 55 in 10 straight events at one point. That slump came to an end with a T26 at the Mallorca Golf Open and two starts later he posted a T24 at the AVIV Dubai Championship, as well. That is good timing for the boom-or-bust youngster who has top 15s in two of his last three trips to Randpark Golf Club. Gamers should certainly give him some consideration this week when building their weekly fantasy rosters.

The South African missed the cut in his 2014 tournament debut and returned with a ho-hum 56th-place finish two years later. Then the course got renovated, putting in new grasses ahead of the 2018 edition. Since then, Lombard has gained strokes over the field in all eight rounds played, gaining three or more strokes in six of those rounds, en route to a T3 and T7 over the last two years. More recently, he enters off a T15 at last week’s Joburg Open. That snapped him out of a slump that included seven straight finishes outside of the top 50. A strong showing last week combined with stellar course results will likely make him a popular option in DFS contests this week.

The key challenges of this week’s test ought to make the burly South African prick up his ears. It is a resort course with links-like features and it often features a lot of wind. That should remind him of the Sicily Open and Verdura where he lost a play-off in 2017, the bad weather might recall the 2016 Australian PGA Championship when he was T4, the links nature his T6 at Ballyliffin in the 2018 Irish Open or his T9 at Lahinch last year in the same event. That said, two starts here have seen him always make the cut, but fail to break 70 (T65-T45). He broke a run of two missed cuts with a decent T26 last week at the Mexico Championship. He opened the season with T7 in the Alfred Dunhill Championship, a fifth top 20 in seven starts, but he hasn’t had one since.

That’s three shots back form joint-leaders Renato Paratore and Shaun Norris. Lombard popped up with a pair of top tens at the Nedbank Challenge and Alfred Dunhill Championship in November/December but disappointed with a missed cut when returning home again for last week’s South African Open. But he was back on fine form today, doing his best work around the turn. Lombard had just one birdie (3rd) and seven pars to start his day but then poured in birdies at 9, 10, 11 and 13. He gave a shot back at 16 but added a final red number at the par-5 18th. This is the first time he’s broken 70 in seven rounds at Abu Dhabi GC.

On the live leaderboard, that’s one back from leaders Rasmus Hojgaard, Benjamin Hebert and Grant Forrest (thru 11) and good enough for T4. Lombard represented a #currentform v #tournamentform poser this week as he’s missed all three cuts in this event, although just one of those (2017) was here at Heritage GC. However, plenty of gamers/bettors were willing to lean on his current form which shows T8 in the Nedbank Golf Challenge and T7 in the Alfred Dunhill Championship in his last two starts. Today, the in-form South African handed in a clean card, starting and ending his day with birdies at 10 and 9 (chip-in). He also picked up shots on the par 5s at 18, 2 and 7.

The 24-year-old had plenty of problems in his first two visits to Leopard Creek CC, missing the cut with laps of 75-76 in 2014 and finishing T56 with scores of 74-68-76-72 in 2016. But last year was a different prospect entirely as he started with a 71, then ended with 69-68-69 to finish T3. Now he can look at pegging something similar again. He started in superb fashion, ticking the first, third and sixth holes, but a double bogey-6 at the ninth hurt his hopes. A third birdie-3 of the week at the 11th helped him make amends, as did birdie-4 at the 15th. He needs help from the leader, but a first Et win remains a possibility.

Lombard started 68-65 at the Nedbank to take the 36-hole lead but couldn’t maintain the pace on the weekend and slipped back to eighth. That followed T17 in the Turkish Airlines Open and T7 in October’s Open de Espana so he’s definitely one of the most in-form local South Africans on show this week. In addition, he took tied third place at this course last year following the renovations. Talking about the state of his game earlier this week, Lombard seems in a great place. “It’s amazing what I’ve achieved this year,” he said. “Not just on the course, but off the course too – how I do things, sticking to my processes. It’s been really amazing and it’s worked out for me, so I hope I can keep the trend going into the next season.” Gamers have every reason to have him in their crosshairs.