Armed with a new set of irons and a remodelled swing, Warrick Druian dominated the final round of the Telkom PGA Championships on Sunday to capture the biggest title of his career.
The 34-year-old Houghton professional bombarded the Woodhill Country Club with seven birdies to win the tournament by five shots and take home the winner’s cheque of R237 750.
With only one bogey in his round on Sunday, Druian shot a six-under-66 to finish the tournament on 21-under-par 267.
On 16-under for the tournament came Mark Murless, Desvondes Botes and last year’s champion Michiel Bothma with Craig Lile, Darren Fichardt and Dion Fourie another shot behind on 15-under.
Druian had no choice but to change his irons. He destroyed the previous lot in the Sun City car park after a poor final round at the Dimension Data Pro-Am saw him finish in 24th place.
”After that I went to see sports psychologist Ken Jennings. We’ve only had a couple of sessions together but we’ve specifically been working on anger management.”
Druian’s only other win on the tour came at the 1997 Royal Swazi Open but after a dry spell, he began to come to form this year after spending time in January with American Scott Dunlap and Tjaart van der Walt to work on his swing.
”We are all good friends and we help each other,” said Druian, including Lile in that group. ”The main thing is now I trust my swing and that has made the difference.”
He had to qualify for this year’s tour events, but from the Dimension Data Pro-Am at Sun City two weeks back. Last week in the Nashua Masters at the Wild Coast, Druian would have finished joint third had it not been for a 10 at the par-four 14th.
But this week it all came together and rounds of 67, 66, 68 and 66 proved that all the hard work had been worthwhile.
”Today I just wanted to get off to a good start. I was a bit nervous and four pars on the first four holes was quite acceptable. We were playing into the wind so not dropping any shots was pretty good.”
While Druian made his charge, none of the other protagonists could find a finish. Overnight leader Lile could not buy a birdie and in fact went through his final 28 holes of the tournament with 27 pars and one dropped shot.
Druian, one shot off the lead at the start of play, started his roll of birdies on the par-five fifth when sinking a 15-footer to draw level with Lile on 16-under. But one hole later he was in the lead on his own, which was stretched to two shots when Lile dropped a shot.
From then on it was all Druian. After his third successive birdie at the par-three seventh, Druian picked up another shots on nine and when his birdie putt dropped on 11 to move him five shots clear of his rivals, Druian punched the air, knowing it was all over bar the shouting.
”At that point I knew that as long as I didn’t make any mistakes, the tournament was mine.”
But there was still a lot of golf to play and Druian hit a slight snag on the 14th when he missed a short putt for par and Murless birdied to close the gap to three. But Druian was soon back on track with birdies on 15 and 17, extending his lead back to five strokes.
The victory moves Druian to ninth place on the Order of Merit but Darren Fichardt has that all wrapped up, even with one more event to be played on the Sunshine Tour — the Tour Championship at Leopard Creek Golf Course near Malelane. — Sapa