JOHANNESBURG – Christiaan Bezuidenhout made an eagle on the last hole on Montagu to claim a one-stroke victory over George Coetzee in the Dimension Data Pro-Am on a tournament total of 25-under-par 264 on Sunday.
Bezuidenhout was in scintillating form the whole week at Fancourt, having led the tournament from the first day through to the last.
On the final day, however, he had some serious competition from the 2016 winner of the event, George Coetzee, who looked as if he had sealed victory when he finished at 24-under par and was a shot clear of Bezuidenhout when the latter was playing the 17th.
“I got off to a perfect start and made birdies on the first two holes,” he said, “but I hit a wayward tee shot on the third but it was tough out there. Today the wind was swirling a lot and on the first nine, it was blowing quite a bit. But I just stuck to it and it was great to finish off with an eagle.”
Tough it was because for about 50 minutes the round was suspended due to a threat of a storm which was passing through the area. As can be imagined, the brief stop affected momentum for all players but Bezuidenhout showed some serious big-match temperament to keep going even when Coetzee was leading.
“It affected the momentum a little bit, especially on the restart,” he admits, “and I hit a poor tee shot on the 12th, three-putted and kind of thought my chances were gone because George was playing great with no bogeys, hitting fairways and greens every time. I knew I needed something special and luckily, I did it.”
A picture says a thousand words. @BezChristiaan goes wire-to-wire at #DDProAm pic.twitter.com/JCzitlfHi8
— Sunshine Tour (@Sunshine_Tour) February 16, 2020
He admits that he was watching the leaderboard on every hole so that he knew what the other playing were doing, especially Coetzee who was looking to becoming only the third player to win this title two times, with others being Nick Price and Darren Fichardt.
“I was watching it a lot, ever hole,” he says, “that way I knew what I needed to do. So, I knew I had to make birdie on the last to take it to a playoff but luckily, I hit a great driver and then an eagle to win. It’s a special tournament, this, and I have always wanted to win it. So, to do it now is really awesome.”
Bezuidenhout has now won on the Sunshine Tour, European Tour and the Challenge Tour as this event was one of three that were co-sanctioned with the Challenge Tour for the first time.
Scores:
264 - Christiaan Bezuidenhout 61 67 69 67
265 - George Coetzee 65 69 65 66
267 - Richard Sterne 66 66 69 66
272 - Santiago Tarrio Ben 63 64 72 73
273 - JC Ritchie 65 70 70 68
274 - Daniel van Tonder 69 69 70 66, Darren Fichardt 66 69 70 69
275 - Ugo Coussaud 69 66 71 69, Louis de Jager 67 70 68 70, Daniel Hillier 65 68 71 71
276 - Martin Simonsen 71 69 68 68, Oscar Lengden 73 69 64 70, Dean Burmester 66 68 72 70, Peter Karmis 72 68 66 70, Daan Huizing 72 69 65 70, Alex Haindl 66 71 69 70, Pep Angles 70 72 65 69, Rhys Enoch 69 71 66 70
277 - Raphael de Sousa 73 67 68 69, Jack Harrison 73 66 67 71, Jacques Blaauw 69 70 66 72, Lorenzo Scalise 68 69 68 72, Martin Ovesen 67 68 69 73, Matt Ford 68 67 68 74
278 - Trevor Fisher Jnr 70 65 74 69, Craig Howie 69 69 69 71, Jake Roos 67 68 67 76, Tom Gandy 68 70 66 74, Jaco Van Zyl 74 68 66 70
279 - Marcel Siem 65 71 73 70, Aron Zemmer 72 72 64 71
280 - Andre Nel 75 68 67 70, Ulrich van den Berg 72 71 67 70, Thriston Lawrence 69 69 70 72
281 - Jean-Paul Strydom 72 70 68 71, Jaco Ahlers 70 66 74 71, Jaco Prinsloo 73 67 70 71, Harry Ellis 71 70 69 71, Fredrik From 74 66 69 72, Haydn Porteous 65 73 71 72, Martin Rohwer 72 67 67 75
282 - Jbe' Kruger 69 69 72 72, Matthew Baldwin 71 68 70 73, Henric Sturehed 70 69 69 74, Clement Sordet 66 68 72 76, Emilio Cuartero Blanco 67 68 70 77, David Boote 71 68 71 72, Frederic Lacroix 70 69 71 72, Jayden Schaper 71 70 64 77, Jacques Kruyswijk 69 69 70 74
283 - Jordan Wrisdale 73 68 69 73, Keith Horne 72 73 65 73, Ockie Strydom 69 70 71 73, Hennie Otto 69 72 67 75, Robin Petersson 71 68 67 77, Stephen Ferreira 64 68 73 78
284 - Kristoffer Reitan 72 68 70 74
285 - Minkyu Kim 77 66 67 75, Eirik Tage Johansen 71 70 69 75, Luke Jerling 67 73 68 77, Marcel Schneider 73 65 68 79
286 - Mitch Waite 75 69 66 76, Jake Redman 70 69 70 77
287 - Robin Dawson 73 67 70 77