– Calum Hill (-14) went out to play the final round of the Joburg Open this Sunday without thinking about victory. He couldn’t even imagine it. He finished the third round in fifteenth position, eight shots behind the leader with fourteen individuals ahead, all with knives between their teeth. His approach was: let’s finish the tournament and this South African tour as best as possible, to see if we can at least secure a top 10 or a top 5.
– However, in sport and golf in particular, extraordinary things sometimes happen. Like today at the Houghton Golf Club in Johannesburg. The perfect storm formed. Hill signed the round of his life. He shot 62, his lowest ever score on the DP World Tour, with 10 birdies and two bogeys. It’s also the most birdies he’s ever made in a single day. Additionally, Shaun Norris (-14), the favourite to win who started with a four-shot lead over second place, had a bad day. He was making par, very inconsistent, inaccurate with his iron distances, and making many mistakes. He carded three bogeys and a double bogey.
– As it turned out, despite Hill not even being on the tournament radar at the start of the final round, he ended up taking the victory on the second playoff hole against Norris and Jacques Kruyswijk (-14), who shot 66 and had two long putts to win the tournament, first on the 72nd hole and then on the first playoff hole. It’s extraordinary to play the first playoff of your career, as Hill himself confessed after the tournament, and win with a par, while your rivals make bogey and double bogey, with the referee warning it was the last hole to be played because a lightning storm was already overhead.
– Sometimes golf tournaments are won fair and square, like Sergio García this very morning in Hong Kong. Other times, one just happens to be there. Hill’s triumph belongs to this second category. It may have more or less merit, but let no one doubt that both victories are worth exactly the same. It was Hill’s tenth tournament in South Africa. In the previous nine, he hadn’t even scratched a single top 10.
– Hill, a 30-year-old Scot, has achieved his second victory on the DP World Tour. The first was at the Cazoo Open in Wales in 2021. It’s the first win for Scotland on the European circuit since Robert MacIntyre achieved it at his country’s open last year. That’s 150 victories for Scotland on the Tour. A round number. Interestingly, Hill won the playoff against two players who had already won this year, so for now, no player has repeated a win on the DP World Tour in 2025.
– Alfredo García Heredia (+1) had a bad Sunday. He shot 73 despite starting with a birdie on the 1st. Then came five bogeys and one more birdie. He missed a good opportunity to earn points in the Race to Dubai. He finished in 57th place and is now 132nd in the ranking. The strange curse of Spanish golf at the Houghton Golf Club continues, a course where we have never even achieved a top 10.
– The European circuit pauses for a week. It will return in 15 days with the Porsche Singapore Open. The Asian Swing will begin.
