Dale Hayes, Tony Johnstone, Ernie Els, Hennie Otto, Trevor Immelman, Branden Grace and Brandon Stone make up the select group of golfers who boast of having won the Freddie Tait Cup as the best amateur of the South African Open and subsequently claiming victory in the Open as professionals. Heading towards that club is Casey Jarvis (-6), one of the jewels of South African golf who finished second in the Road to Mallorca last season, winning a tournament in Austria, and has made the leap to the DP World Tour. In December 2020 he was 25th at the Gary Player CC in Sun City and received the award for best amateur. Three years later he is looking for his first milestone on the European Circuit no less than in the famous Open of his country, hosted by the Blair Atholl Golf & Equestrian Estate in Johannesburg.
Jarvis is currently second after taking advantage of the five par 5s on the course (the longest in the history of the DP World Tour) and two par 3s, to which he added a single penalty on the 16th. It seemed that the lad from Boksburg, who turned 20 in July, was going to finish the first round as the sole leader, until this little gift was spoiled by Joakim Lagergren (-7).
The Swede comes from a dark year in the elite of continental golf, a black campaign, very bad, in which he finished in 170th place in the Race to Dubai after missing half of the cuts and missing two tournaments due to injury. Let’s not forget that the 32-year-old Nordic is a Tour winner (Rocco Forte Sicilian Open), but that was a long time ago. His game is lacklustre, although just over a year ago at the Andalucía Masters he captured the silver medal. The Swede wants to recover his best version and in this initial round he played five, with seven birdies and no bogeys.
Joakim Lagergren takes the outright lead at -7 📈#InvestecSAOpen pic.twitter.com/n98f4wBxdS
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) November 30, 2023
Among the troop of South Africans who have sneaked into the top ten (Jovan Rebula and Louis de Jager with -5, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, JC Ritchie, Hennie du Plessis, Heinrich Bruiners and Combrinck Smit with -4) there are several international golfers such as Andy Sullivan (-5), winner of the South African Open in 2015, Matteo Manassero (-4), Jesper Svensson and Will Enefer (-4), just landed from the Challenge, as well as Matthias Schwab (-4) and David Ravetto (-4).
Exactly sixty golfers, out of 155 in contention after the withdrawal of Dan Brown, defeated Blair Atholl Golf, but in that list we only find one of ours: Álex del Rey (-1). The Madrid native, currently twenty-seventh and who was thirtieth in 2022, could not make the cut in the premiere last week at the Joburg Open, although here for now he is comfortably installed within the sieve after sinking four birdies and two bogeys.
Manu Elvira (+1) will need to play under par tomorrow to compete at the weekend. The Cantabrian started with hesitations with bogeys at 2, 4 and 5, but recovered at 9 and 10 with two birdies, although he lacked a bit of luck to continue the positive trend and closed the round with eight pars. The outlook looks worse for the other three members of the Armada. Santi Tarrio (+3) choked on the first part of his round (from 10 to 18) with six errors between 11 and 17, minimised with the initial birdie and the 18th before sinking one more on the 4th. If the Galician needs to tighten up, even more so do Sebas García Rodríguez (+4) and Iván Cantero (+4). The Madrid native started like a rocket with three birdies in four flags, but before the 9th he made three mistakes and on the 12th he stumbled with a quadruple bogey followed by two more errors; at least he ended the day with birdies at 17 and 18. The Asturian, starting at 10, was going steady with two under in the first two thirds of the round after an eagle, two birdies and a couple of bogeys, but he completely lost his chain from the 4th with four bogeys and a double bogey for four more.
The South African Open does not suit the Spaniards, who have not won in the previous 112 editions, and for now it seems that in this 2023 the dynamics will not change either.
