Lisa Coetzer made two eagles on Sunday on her way to a six-under-par 66 and a two-stroke lead after the first round of the South African Women’s Amateur Stroke Play Championship at PE Golf Club – The Hill.
The eagles came on the back nine after she had made three bogeys on her way to turning in one-over-par 37. The 14-year-old Ekurhuleni junior came home in 29, and her 66 was two strokes clear of GolfRSA No 1 Kesha Louw, with Isabella Ferreira in third on three-under-par.
“I really struggled on that first nine,” said Coetzer, who opened promisingly enough with a birdie on the par-five first. But she made bogeys on two and three, and another on five in an uncharacteristically poor start.
“I turned in one-over and I thought that wasn’t good enough,” she said. “Then I fired, and I never stopped.” She made five threes on the back nine, and only one of them came on a short hole.
She followed a birdie on the 12th with an eagle on 13, made par on the 14th, birdie on 15, par on 16, and then closed out with a birdie on 17 and an eagle on 18. “For the birdie on 12, I hit to about 20 feet and I made a good putt,” said Coetzer. “On 13, I hit driver-five hybrid, and I made a really long putt, about 25 feet. On 17, I hit it to about nine feet, and on 18, I made a good 20-footer for eagle.”
For Louw, the front nine was a birdie-free zone, and she ended up making just a single bogey in her round, on the 15th.
The KwaZulu-Natal golfer made nine straight pars before the turn and before she was able to get into her scoring. “The putter was cold on the front nine,” she admitted. “On the 10th, I started with birdie and that gave me a bit of momentum. I carried on making a few nice par putts. I made a long eagle putt on the 13th, and then a few more birdies to finish up. I hit it to about two feet on 16 and I had a nice chip on 18 to finish up.”
Ferreira from Southern Cape also dropped just a single shot on her way to her three-under-par 69 in the opening round.
“I’m very happy with the start,” she said. “I was quite anxious on the first tee and the first few holes, but I managed to pull off some great pars and save some very difficult shots.
“The momentum shifted on the eighth hole, when I started getting my birdies. It got slow again on the back nine, but I started making birdies again in the last few holes, hitting them close and making putts. On the last hole, I had an eagle putt, but I struggled to line up my ball, because it just kept rolling down the slope. The slopes are very severe here at Port Elizabeth.”
Also in contention inside the top five after the first round were Bobbi Brown, who won the GolfRSA International Amateur, and Casey Twidale. Brown had a two-under-par 70, and Twidale carded a one-under 71.
In the competition for the Abe Bailey Trophy, for players with handicap indexes from 6.6 to 15.3, Kenyan Navya Nagda led the way with her 11-over-par 83 in her debut in the GolfRSA flagship event. The 16-year-old old led by two from Christan Booysen and Mogomotsi Sebata.
“It’s my first time in the national environment from going to school in George for the golf,” Nagda said. “I really like it. I learned to just take it easy and try and be on the fairways. Basically, just try and play a par game, and try to keep the bogeys to a minimum.”
She was also grateful to have made some new friends already, one of whom was Sebata, competing in her fourth SA Women’s Amateur. “I like to get to meet new people and also to test your goals,” said the South African. “The course is not as long as some as we play, and I found it really playable. The highlight of my round was the eagle on 18.”
At the top of the leaderboard, the players are going to have to navigate their way around a front nine that seems more testing than the back. Said Coetzer: “In the second round, I’m just going to try and make as many pars as I can, and then the back nine is definitely scoreable.”
Fow Louw, it’s about weather that challenge mentally. “I think my mind is really good for the next two rounds. I’ve been working with a sports psychologist, and I think that’s also been helping.”