JOHANNESBURG - There are at least two reasons why George Coetzee can be considered as one of the favourites - perhaps the outright favourite - for the R16.5-million Tshwane Open beginning at Pretoria Country Club on Thursday.
For one, he’s been a member at Pretoria CC for 20 years, and before turning professional he won club championships on the superb parkland course.
And, when he triumphed at the Tshwane Open two years ago, he said after the final round: “What did help me today was remembering those club champs I won here as a youngster. I knew where to be aggressive and where to hold back.
“The par-4 17th was key. I once lost a club champs there because I played it conservatively. Today I knew I had to be aggressive and I went for the green with my drive. Okay I didn’t make the green, but I was close enough to hit a great little punch shot from out of the trees and make my birdie (a crucial one as it turned out).”
So there’s home advantage, but what also makes Coetzee a player to watch in the quest for the R2.6-million winners cheque is that he appears to be in excellent form.
Swing-wise, the 30-year-old has been working hard on the fundamentals and on Sunday he signed for a day’s best seven-under-par 65 in the final round of the Joburg Open at Royal Johannesburg & Kensington’s East Course. That, remarkably, included bogeys at holes 16 and 17 as he came tantalisingly close to winning, finishing three shots off the pace.
Coetzee may know Pretoria CC well, but he knows that with the huge amount of rain in the area recently, the especially thick rough will provide a stern challenge.
“The course is in unbelievable nick but, yes, the rough is thick. The guys will be losing a couple of balls in that long grass.
“From my point of view, obviously there are a lot of expectations when you are playing at your home club with the local crowd coming out to support me, but I have to just focus on the job at hand, trust my instincts and shoot some good numbers,” he said.
Coetzee looked to be on course for a good year with two wins in 2015 before a broken ankle in a surfing accident ended his campaign, but - after six months on the sidelines - he bounced back to finish 48th on the Race to Dubai Rankings in 2016. He has two top-10 place finishes in his last three events of the new season.
Going back to Pretoria CC in 2015, golfers talk with not just a small degree of trepidation about the back nine on a Sunday but also the great pressure that goes with it when a player is contending for a win in a big-money tournament.
This is precisely what Coetzee faced in the final round. But he handled the tension-packed final nine holes with steely nerves to sign for a five-under-par 65 and a one-shot victory over fellow South African Jacques Blaauw.
“To win in front of friends and family at my home club was particularly sweet,” he said, “I could feel the crowd behind me, and the momentum grew as the round progressed. It was just a fantastic feeling.”
If Coetzee doesn’t win this time, it wouldn’t be surprising to see two other Tshwane-based golfers at the top of the leaderboard.
One is Centurion’s experienced Darren Fichardt who won last week’s Joburg Open on Sunday, a shot ahead of England’s Paul Waring and Welshman Stuart Manley.
The other is Jacques Kruyswijk, who but for a double-bogey on the 14th hole at Royal Joburg, might well have been in a playoff with Fichardt as he finished just two off the pace.
After a poor drive at the 14th, Kruyswijk - instead of adopting safety-first tactics - attempted an over ambitious recovery out of the trees and ended up in a hazard which led to the two-over six.
“I wasn’t playing for a top-five position, I was playing for a win,” Kruyswijk explained. “So I thought I’d hit one of those miracle Bubba Watson-type shots. I wanted to curl it onto the green.
“I can do that in practice, but it just had too much run on the day, and I had to take a drop. I’m disappointed I didn’t win, but I fought hard and gave a good performance. Now I just want to be up there more and more.”