England’s Miles Gray and local veteran campaigner, Brandon Pieters will take a slim one-shot lead into the second round of the fifth and final Big Easy Blu Label Invitational after both players carded rounds of four-under 68 at Silver Lakes Golf and Wildlife Estate on Monday.
Gray’s round of 68 featured three birdies, an eagle and a solitary drop while Pieters went round the Silver Lakes layout unblemished in the first round.
“I’m really happy with my round,” said Gray after his round-one effort. “I played solidly and kept it in play; just one silly mistake where I laid up into a bunker but other than that, I played pretty solidly the whole day.
“I think it’s really key that sometimes that from 120-130 yards you aim into 24 or 30 feet, which is hard to do mentally. But, if you can do that, I think you can put together a really good score around here. You’ve also got to make use of the par-fives here. I had a pitching wedge into two of them and a 4-iron into another, so you have to make use of the par-fives around here.”
Chasing hard and within touching distance of the leading pair, Dillon Germishuys, Kian Rose, Kian Coetzer, Reece McKain and Louis Botha will be relishing the opportunity to unseat Pieters and Gray from the summit of the leaderboard.
Last week’s winner, Daniel Cronje is in a seven-way share of the eighth spot which includes Oliver Goldhill, local man Drikus Joubert and amateurs Jandre van Niekerk, Romano Saincic, Rees Emanual and Ethan Gough.
This 54-hole event is forms part of the five tournaments which the Betway Big Easy Tour is co-hosting with the Blu Label Unlimited Bushveld Tour this campaign. The event at Silver Lakes is the final tournament in that series of five.
The Betway Big Easy Tour is the Sunshine Tour’s feeder circuit and enjoys the support of the legendary Ernie Els, among other patrons.