Fresh from winning the South African Open last week, Trevor Immelman shot an opening-round three-under-par 69 on the first morning of the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Houghton on Thursday. A double-bogey six on the ninth, Immelman’s last, dropped him out of a group of players at five under par, but he will be happy with his start nonetheless.
Immelman missed the cut in this tournament last year, but his playoff victory over Tim Clark at Erinvale last week has taken his confidence, and, as a consequence, his game to a new level. Beginning at the 10th the 23-year-old was out in 34, and, after dropping a shot at the fourth, had three birdies in four holes before coming back to Earth at the last.
Immelman is four shots behind the early leader, Welshman Stephen Dodd, who has already had two top-10 finishes on tour this season, and three behind Callie Swart, a little-known Pretoria professional. Dodd’s seven-under-par 65 could have been even better, but he hit his approaches to two of the par fives into greenside bunkers and could not get up and down for birdies at either.
Dodd shot an opening 66 to be among the early leaders last year at this tournament, but faded quickly thereafter, something that has been symptomatic of the career of the 36-year-old from Cardiff. He was the British amateur champion in 1989, and the European Tour rookie of the year in 2001, but has had to go back to tour school nine times since then.
Swart turned professional at the unusually advanced age of 28 and has won twice on the Winter Tour, the last time being at Goldfields in the Powerade Classic of 2001. He finished a lowly 49th in last season’s order of merit on the Sunshine Tour, just sneaking into the top 50, who are exempt into the two co-sanctioned events this week and last.
He said: ‘My putter got really warm and I kept putting my iron shots closer and closer to the pin. I started seeing a psychologist on the advice of my brother Johan, who caddies for me. He was sick and tired of seeing me work so hard for no reward. I’ve spent two days with him working on visualisation and getting more focused.â€