Golf can be a game of thrills and spills, high and lows, sparing not a thought or care for one’s emotional state or well being.
It’s not often you are going to hole a bunker shot for eagle on the 18th hole – nominating it by asking for the flag to be taken out – and then have your opponent knock in an eagle putt from just off the green to match your score.
But that’s what happened to Jean-Marc Bouic in his game against Graeme Forbes in a Premier League tussle between Southern KwaZulu-Natal and Royal Durban at Southbroom Golf Club last Sunday.
Bouic lost 1-down and was bitterly disappointed, but it didn’t last as the hosts had won the match 9-3, with an emphatic display of crisp golf on a typically hot and humid February day.
The foursomes were won 4-0.
Bouic and David Rush beat Forbes and Dane Klusener 1-up.
Jan McDermott and Chris Zietsman beat Steve Young and Sabelo Majola 1-up.
Gavin Sole and Matt Sutherland beat Kuven Nadrajah and Sebastian Terblanche 6/5.
Jason Gilliver and Jack Cubitt beat Ruben Coetzer and George van Vuuren 3/2.
The singles were won 5-3.
Rush lost to Klusener, a former South Coaster and SA bodyboarding champ in 2013, 1-down, despite being 2-up with three to go.
It was a strange old day for the veteran.
He holed his second on the 10th for eagle, but finished off the round by sending an iron shot from under the trees – 165m from the hole – over the green and onto the cart path, with the ball finally disappearing into the flowerbed under the seldom used tee-box near the clubhouse.
Bouic lost 1-down to Forbes in a stunning finish TV networks would pay top dollar for.
McDermott was back to his impregnable-fortress best, seeing off Kuven Nadrajah 4/2.
Zietsman was as solid as ever, beating Young 2-up, finishing with a flourish by holing a monster putt for eagle.
Sutherland had a putt on the 11th to six up against Majola, missed and then suddenly found a resurgent opponent to deal with.
He eventually closed it out on the 17th.
Sole, ‘promoted’ to third in the order to give some of the young guns a go at the top made short work of a dismayed Terblanche, who’d expected that he’d avoid the Big Fish at three, the match ending with a winning margin of 5/4 for Sole.
Cubitt lost to Van Vuuren 4/2 on a day when his opponent found top gear.
Gilliver, who has made it through Stage 1 on the Sunshine Tour’s Q-School, beat Coetzer 4/2.
It means Southern KZN remain unbeaten after a recent 6-6 half with Umhlali CC and travel to Beachwood on February 27 hoping to add another victory.
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