Reigning SA Women’s Amateur champion Gia Raad kept her cool after an early double-bogey, and carded a one-under-par 71 at Leopard Creek to close out a two-stroke victory in the R&A Amateur Africa Women’s Invitational.
That calmness not only gained her the title, but also invitations to compete in the Women’s Amateur Championship, Final Qualifying for the AIG Women’s Open, the Joburg Ladies Open, the Investec South African Women’s Open and the Waterfall City Tournament of Champions.
“I’m really lucky,” she said of the doors that have opened for her. “I have a lot of school to do, so I’m really going to try hard to practice and study at the same time. These opportunities don’t come around often and it means the world to me. It’s so amazing that we get these opportunities, even to play at this course and get to qualify for all those things. It’s just crazy.”
It could all have gone pear-shaped after the 17-year-old dropped two shots on the long par-five 2nd hole, but she did the right thing by working diligently to get those early losses back.
Birdies on the tricky par-three fifth and the sixth got her back to level-par and in a position to fight off any challenge that might have been thrown her way by of Bobbi Brown, who eventually finished runner-up.
“It actually wasn’t a huge lead,” said Raad, who won the English Girls Stroke Play and Nomads SA Girls Championships back-to-back in 2023. “Bobbi caught up to me, and I made a couple of mistakes, especially I made one on the second hole, but I just tried to keep my composure and tried to stick to my game plan, and it just worked out in my favour.”
Playing with Raad and Brown in the final match, GolfRSA No1 Lisa Coetzer carded a two-over-par 74 to claim third place on her own at three-over.
Chanelle Mwangi of Kenya finished fourth on 12-over after her closing two-over 74, and Kesha Louw carded a final round of five-over 77 for fifth place on 16-over-par.