David John is sticking with Erik van Rooyen as the European Tour heads for Pretoria and the Tshwane Open.
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Darren Fichardt emerged triumphant from a slog at the Joburg Open last week as the players battled testing weather conditions and a saturated golf course but the forecast looks much more promising as we move up the road to Pretoria Country Club for the Tshwane Open.
It will be the fifth renewal of the tournament and a third straight at this venue where local man George Coetzee took the title in 2015 for a hugely popular success.
Charl Schwartzel then lapped his rivals 12 months later but is not here to defend as he tackles the WGC event instead in Mexico so it is Coetzee who has been inserted as clear favourite ahead of Dean Burmester and Thomas Aiken.
The shenanigans with the weather in Johannesburg makes it a bit tougher to make an accurate assessment of the form but I am going to persevere with Erik van Rooyen.
He was a 100/1 chance last week but those quotes have been shunted out a little bit more by some firms after he virtually brought up the rear following a closing round of 75.
He was mucked around as much as anyone by the delays but I was pretty impressed by the way he responded to an opening 73 with a second-round 66, coming back on a Saturday morning to complete his 18 holes and just make the cut.
Once officials decided only a further 18 holes were possible, van Rooyen was realistically too far off the pace and it was simply a case of going through the motions after a double bogey on the third hole before getting ready to go once again this time.
I see no reason to change my opinion on the basis of one result about a hugely promising player who won in South Africa recently while his course form from two years ago – when he finished bogey-bogey-double-bogey for a T10 – gives him every hope of getting involved again at a very generous price, especially with seven places on offer with Coral.
Stuart Manley and Paul Waring struck a blow for the northern hemisphere at Royal Johannesburg & Kensington with high finishes and Ireland’s Paul Dunne has been bubbling along reasonably in the early stages of 2017 so does not look a million miles away from a big performance.
His career has taken on a far steadier parabola since bursting onto the scene to share the lead in the Open Championship as an amateur in 2015 at St Andrews going into the final round.
The spotlight was always going to be intense after that performance once he joined the paid ranks but he is gradually moving in the right direction and made just enough money in 2016 to keep his card on the European Tour.
There seems to be further positivity as he starts the new year and gets more and more comfortable with his surroundings - that has been reflected in four cuts made from five starts and a couple of top-25s thrown in.
“I definitely feel I'm a better player now than this time last year. I'm better off the tee and I'm a better iron player,” he said in Abu Dhabi and just three bogeys (one a round) in Johannesburg over 54 holes seems to back up this argument while those around him were racking up plenty of big numbers.
The 24-year-old makes his debut here but it is a relatively short track at just over 7,000 yards and the accurate Dunne is well up to a competitive effort in a field that lacks real depth, again taking seven places where possible.
If you are looking for one at even more of a price then Pretoria’s Tjaart van der Walt is worth a second glance at a standout 175/1 with bet365.
He was going along very nicely indeed in his second round in Johannesburg but a double bogey at his closing hole rather took the gloss off things and he never really got in the hunt from that point when he finally got back on the course to complete the 54 holes.
However, he emerged as the most accurate driver on the week and that sort of stat sets him up for another good crack around this tight, tree-lined venue where he posted a T3 two years ago behind Coetzee.
Van der Walt is into his 40s now – like Fichardt - and still chipping away in a bid to make the big breakthrough so there is probably every chance he will be found out by a few of the up-and-comers when push comes to shove.
That said, he is playing extremely well at the moment and a return to his home city can elicit another decent performance around a layout that plays to the strongest part of his game.
Posted at 1225 GMT on 28/02/17.
