GRANT SHIMMIN, Pietersburg | Thursday 6.00pm.
THE overwhelmingly youthful appearance of the field at the R125000 Pietersburg Classic didn’t stop two veritable veterans of the Vodacom Southern Africa Tour from stamping their authority on the first round.
Dean van Staden and Justin Hobday both turned professional on New Year’s Day in 1985, when some of their fellow players in the 72-man field were still mere toddlers, and they made their experience count with six-under-par 66s, to lead the slightly more youthful Richard Fulford, 25, by a shot.
Six players were grouped on 68, two off the pace. First of those in was Bloemfontein Golf Club’s Colin Sorour, a member of the first three-ball to tee off at the 10th hole, and he was later joined by Zimbabwean Mark Cayeux, Ivano Ficalbi, Mark Murless, Wallie Coetsee and Brett Liddle.
Seven players returned 69s on a day when 33 of the field of 72 broke par.
Zambian-born Van Staden, who last won on Tour at the Vodacom Series: Free State event in the 1997/8 season, said the key to his round had been his accurate iron play, a factor well illustrated by the trio of birdie twos on his card, at the fourth, eighth and 11th holes, as well as by the fact that none of his six birdie putts were of any great length.
Hobday, at 36 a year older than his co-leader, had identical loops of 32 and 34, although he played the nines the opposite way round. An eagle three at the second was the perfect way to kickstart his trip around the Pietersburg Golf Club layout.
“I hit my tee shot into the fairway trap on the right, hit a super 3-iron out of there onto the front of the green and made the putt from about 30 feet,” he explained.
Birdies at the fourth and seventh gave him his outward 32 and he was on a roll on the back nine, with birdies at 13, 14 and 15, before his only bogey of the day, at the 16th, the longest of the course’s par-3 holes, arrested his charge.
Playing at 205m, the hole required a 2-iron off the tee for Hobday. “I hit it in the bunker, knocked it out to about three or four feet and missed the putt,” he said.