Astin Arthur and Bobbi Brown won the respective men’s and women’s singles titles at the GolfRSA International Amateur Championship at Royal Johannesburg Golf Club’s East Course.
It took a gritty birdie on the first extra-hole of a sudden-death play-off on Friday for Arthur to overcome the challenge of Charl Barnard. In the final round, the pair had gone toe-to-toe and Arthur’s bogey-free 68 had trumped Barnard’s three-under-par 69 – and Barnard was left ruing the lone bogey he made on the par-five 7th.
The pair had left Jordan Burnand two strokes back in third place on 15-under-par after his closing five-under 67 had brought the reigning South African Stroke Play champion close, but not close enough.
South African Golf Development Board Elite Squad player Johndre Ludick and Frenchman Octave Bailo shared fourth a further four strokes back on 11-under after closing rounds of 70 and 72 respectively.
In the women’s competition, Brown was in a league of her own as she romped home by eight
shots.
Brown’s closing five-under-par 67 was comfortably the best round of the final day as she rammed home the advantage she had held since she took the lead in the second round with a six-under 66.
With Olivia Wood a distant second in her rearview mirror, 21-year-old Brown could have been forgiven for taking her foot off the gas, but such thoughts had no place in the mind of someone who has become pretty efficient at closing things out.
She made two birdies and a bogey on the front nine to turn in one-under, and then she turned on the screws with four birdies in the final seven holes.