“What a turnout we had today at Grasslands Driving Range in Benoni,” said Steven van Zyl.
The GRIDPRO SA Longest Drive competition, that recently swung in action again, had an outstanding amount of players show up for Grid No 3.
Thirty-two players turned up, which overall made the event a huge success, with five qualifying sets in order to gain a spot in the top six, with top six distances ranging from 435m down to 416m.
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Players also had the chance to compete in the ‘buy back in’ round to see who would complete the top eight positions for the double elimination finals round.
Marco des Neves against Berno Korff were the first up on the chopping block, with des Neves taking out Korff with a 390.7m drive.
Up next was Jason Cook against Wesley Roberts, with Roberts taking the game by force with a fantastic 412.4m drive.
The third match was between Jaun Nel and Donavan Snyman, with Nel winning with a drive of 352.6m.
Finishing the first stage of the top eight was Thorne van Zyl against Niel Wyman. With consistent driving, van Zyl took the win with a 392.7m drive.
The loser’s pool then had some great match-ups with old favourites Cook and Snyman fighting it out to see who will take a spot in the winner’s pool.
Snyman took the win with a fantastic drive of 404.7m, knocking Cook out of the top eight.
The next loser’s pool match was between Korff and Wyman. Korff took the win with a 357m drive.
The winner’s pool had two old rivals face each other, Nel and van Zyl. Van Zyl took his second win with a drive of 418.4m, which knocked Nel down into loser’s pool.
The loser’s pool match with Nel and Roberts was up next, with Nel leading the charge with a 398.7m drive, advancing back into the winner’s pool.
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Korff and Snyman matched up, with victory going to Korff after hitting a 396.2m drive over Snyman’s 394.3m drive.
This meant the two winners out of the loser’s pool, Korff and Nel, had to play it out to see who would advance back into the winner’s pool.
Nel beat Korff’s 377m drive with a 391.5m drive, putting him back into the winner’s pool.
“Nel then had to win one more match against the ever-consistent des Neves,” explained Steven.
Des Neves was looking good to go through to the finals, but Nel had other plans.
With a fantastic last ball drive of 425.3m, he knocked des Neves out and advanced to the finals against van Zyl, who had not lost a match all day.
Nel had to beat van Zyl twice to win the day.
The first final went down to the wire, with Nel winning on a 399m drive. This meant they had one more set to decide the winner of Grid No 3.
Van Zyl and Nel had the final showdown and van Zyl, hitting a Krank Extreme Driver, took the honours with some great hitting throughout the day and winning his second event of this short but tough season.
“Great showing of some fantastic distances by the top eight with drives of over 400m,” said Steven.
Longest drive of the day went to des Neves with 435m.
Van Zyl’s win means he leads the Order of Merit leaderboard by 200 points, over the last event winner of Grid No 2, Ruan Rohm.
The next event will be held on October 3 at Grasslands Driving Range in Benoni.
