Pieter Kruger claimed his third victory on the Big Easy Tour when he won the BET Wanderers on the first play-off hole against Antonio Rosado on Tuesday.
Kruger came into the final round sitting pretty among the leading five players, after signing for four-under-par 67. He started the final round with a nerve-calming birdie before going on to make four more on the day. However, a double bogey on 15 took from those birdies to leave him on two-under-par and tied with Rosado.
Despite a tightly contested affair at Wanderers, where at one stage it looked like there would be four or more players involved in the play-off, Kruger held on until it was only him and Rosado.
‘It was a tricky two-putt,’ Kruger said of the winning putt on the play-off hole. ‘It’s slow on the uphill, but I managed to two-putt.’
And having come from a difficult contest in Houghton a week ago where he came 53rd, Kruger returned to winning ways and credits that to his putting. ‘The last two months were quite difficult for me, ‘he said, ‘even last week at Houghton, the golf wasn’t good. But the putting has improved a lot from last week.’
And with one BET event left before the winter swing of the Sunshine Tour begins, Kruger feels he is setting himself up well for the demanding schedule ahead.
‘This is a good start,’ he said, ‘You can call it pre-season if you like. So hopefully I will just carry the momentum through.’
Despite a gallant effort to claim a maiden victory on the BET circuit, Rosado will have to wait a while longer to enter the winners’ circle. With three top-10 finishes this season, the Portuguese Rosado has been knocking for a while, but Wanderers was not to be.
Tied third was Morne Buys, Etienne Bond, Kyle Barker and veteran Omar Sandys, who has also been raising his hand to claim a long-awaited win. Rounding out the top-10 was Drikus van der Walt, Tyrone Ryan, Dylan O’Leary and last week’s winner, Wynand Dingle.
LEADING FINAL SCORES
136 – Pieter Kruger 67 69
136 – Antonio Rosado 69 67
138 – Morne Buys 72 66, Kyle Barker 71 67, Etienne Bond 70 68, Omar Sandys 67 71
139 – Drikus van der Walt 71 68, Tyrone Ryan 67 72, Wynand Dingle 66 73
140 – Dylan O’Leary 69 71
141 – Matt Bright 73 68, Teboho Sefatsa 71 70, Gert Myburgh 70 71, Damon Stephenson 68 73
142 – Divan Gerber 72 70, Armandt Scholtz 71 71
143 – Jacques P de Villiers 72 71, Jason Smith 74 69, Bryandrew Roelofsz 71 72, Jeff Inglis 71 72, Jacquin Hess 69 74
144 – Musiwalo Nethunzwi 71 73
145 – PH McIntyre 74 71, Greg Bentley 72 73, Bryn Flanagan 74 71, Dwayne Basson 71 74
146 – Jonathan Waschefort 73 73, Albert Venter 74 72, Bennie van der Merwe 72 74, Jade Buitendag 72 74, Russel Franz 71 75, Conway Kunneke 75 71, Gerrit Foster 71 75, Matthew Spacey 76 70, Sipho Bujela 77 69