It’s been 65 years since an amateur won the championship, and Christiaan Maas has positioned himself for a tilt at the title with his third round of two-under-par 70 at Durban Country Club in the Investec South African Open Championship.
Denis Hutchinson won the second-oldest national open championship in the world in 1959 at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club, and he was the seventh and last amateur to take the title.
Maas held his nerve on a testing day which saw him make four bogeys. But six birdies moved him to 12-under-par through 54 holes, and, with just two strokes separating him and the lead which was shared at 14-under-par by Dylan Naidoo of South Africa and England’s Laurie Canter, it’s not an unrealistic dream for Maas.
With the wind up, with the effects of the torrential rains still evident on the course, and with light fading quickly for the last few matches out on the course for the third round, Maas traded blows with seasoned professionals, and, at the end of it all he never looked out of place.
He started with a bogey on the first, and it all could have gone south from there. “I hit a bad shot on one, kinda pulled it,” he said. “Bad execution. Hit a very good tee shot on two and that settled me into the round. I made birdie there. From there I kind of stuck to my gameplan and kept it in front of me and didn’t try and overpower the golf course.”
He was unable to take advantage of the par-five third, but he made birdies on each of the other three par-fives. His other two birdies came on two of the remaining par-threes after that birdie on the second, and that gave credence to his take on the difference between golf in the United States and in South Africa.
“Longer par-fives, longer par-fours, longer par-threes. Everything is just longer over there,” he said. “You’re playing on different golf courses. They are longer… the par-threes and par-fives are proper golf shots. Here, we’ve got some short par-fives and we can hit driver-wedge into them. Also putting: Greens are very quick over there, so good putting will always help you out.”
As he went deeper into his round, so much of what he said became true of Durban Country Club too. It was significant that his three bogeys after that drop on the first came on par-fours where he missed the greens and was unable to easily get up and down to save par.
But what shone through was his ability to deal with the setbacks and then move on. He attributes that to his experience in America. “The top guys are pretty much the same, but the depth in the US is unbelievable,” he said.
“It’s showed the last couple of years with the top guys coming out and feeling comfortable on the PGA Tour. There is a lot of money and a lot of effort going into college golf. It shows what’s going into it with how good we get.
“College golf kind of sets you on your own. You are not dependent on your mom and dad doing everything. Coaches help us a lot too, but things like working out and stuff, we mostly do it on our own. We have some compulsory stuff, but we mostly do it on our own and that has shown on tour when guys who come out of Texas kind of do it on their own in college and that helps you after college.”
He's going to be on his own in the final round which he will play in the company of Marco Penge of England, who finished the third round in third on his own, one stroke ahead of Maas, and one behind Naidoo and Canter.
He’s already on his own amongst the last few generations of amateurs as a man who is going to win the Freddie Tait Cup for the leading amateur who makes the cut. He’s the only amateur who made it through to the weekend, to he will lift that wonderful trophy after the final round for the second time after his triumph in 2022.
The last player to lift it more than once was Neville Clarke in 1991. It was the third time he won it after he won in 1986 and 1988. That’s a feat matched only by Clarence Oleander (1932, 1936, 1939), Jimmy Boyd (1950, 1951, 1953) and Barry Franklin (1961, 1962, 1963).
If Maas, who will be the first multiple winner of the Freddie Tait Cup in 24 years, can pull off a victory in the championship too, it will surely surpass what he calls his favourite tournament so far, which was the Brabazon Trophy which he won by five strokes in England in May 2022.