There were 10 golfers who shared the lead going into Saturday’s third round of the Bain’s Whisky Cape Town Open, and yet the leader by the end of the day didn’t come from any one of them.
Instead it fell to Sweden’s Mikael Lindberg to overtake them all.
Lindberg teed off five shots behind the leaders on Saturday and signed for a 65 – including two eagles – at the Royal Cape Golf Club that earned him a one-stroke lead on 11 under par in this Sunshine Tour and European Challenge Tour co-sanctioned tournament.
His nearest challengers on 10 under par are South Africans Michael Hollick, Thomas Aiken, Louis Albertse and Ryan van Velzen; Frenchmen Robin Sciot-Siegrist and Martin Couvra; and Englishman Sam Hutsby.
“I played pretty good all day and obviously I’m pleased to shoot to seven under. I made some really nice momentum putts early in the round which helped,” said Lindberg.
A tight golf course and a stiff breeze combined to prevent any one player making too much of a move away from the field in the third round.
“I saw the wind was forecast to pick up around lunchtime so I felt like even though I was a few shots off the leaders at the start of the day, if I could post a good number today I felt like I could get myself in contention. When I started there wasn’t much wind. I was in a good place to take advantage of teeing off early,” he said.
But even the professionals have been surprised at just how tight this leaderboard has remained.
“Before today’s round there were 10 people sharing the lead, and after 15 holes today I saw that there were 17 players on nine under par. I’ve never really seen that before. It builds up for an interesting Sunday,” said Lindberg.
South Africa’s Albertse also said he was surprised to see so many players in contention going into Sunday’s final round.
“I’ve never experienced a tournament where 10 players have shared the lead. After the second round I was one shot off the lead and I was lying in tied 11th place. It’s very weird. I think this is a golf course where you can’t really run away from the field. It will be hard to see somebody build up a big lead here.” – Michael Vlismas
THIRD ROUND SCORES:
205 - Mikael Lindberg 70 70 65
206 - Michael Hollick 71 69 66, Robin Sciot-Siegrist 70 69 67, Thomas Aiken 70 69 67, Martin Couvra 69 69 68, Louis Albertse 68 68 70, Ryan Van Velzen 68 67 71, Sam Hutsby 69 66 71
207 - Toto Thimba Jnr 68 73 66, JC Ritchie 73 68 66, Shaun Norris 68 71 68, Robin Roussel 70 69 68, Victor Pastor 74 65 68, Danie Van Niekerk 68 70 69, Gerhard Pepler 68 67 72
208 - Daniel Young 67 73 68, Lars van Meijel 73 66 69, James Mack 69 69 70, Nicolai Kristensen 71 67 70, Martin Simonsen 72 65 71, Justin Walters 68 69 71, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen 70 66 72, Conor Purcell 67 69 72, James Allan 68 67 73
209 - Jovan Rebula 69 72 68, Malcolm Mitchell 73 67 69, Rupert Kaminski 72 67 70, Philipp Katich 72 66 71, Benjamin Hebert 69 66 74
210 - Jake Roos 71 70 69, Neil Schietekat 71 70 69, Rhys Enoch 71 70 69, Joel Moscatel 70 71 69, Jacques Blaauw 71 70 69, Benjamin Follett-Smith 69 71 70, Marc Hammer 72 68 70, Hennie O'Kennedy 71 68 71, Euan Walker 70 69 71, Ben Schmidt 70 69 71, Craig Howie 71 66 73, Tapio Pulkkanen 66 69 75, Alfie Plant 67 68 75
211 - Tomas Gouveia 72 69 70, Pierre Pineau 70 71 70, Jaco Van Zyl 70 68 73, Haraldur Magnus 69 66 76
212 - Jack McDonald 68 73 71, Anton Karlsson 72 69 71, Yurav Premlall 72 69 71, Maxence Giboudot 72 69 71, Oliver Lindell 69 71 72, Romain Wattel 67 73 72, Lee Slattery 68 71 73, Keegan Mclachlan 72 67 73, Bradley Bawden 66 71 75, Deon Germishuys 68 67 77
213 - Alejandro Canizares 73 68 72, Rhys West 68 67 78
214 - Albert Venter 68 73 73, Pietro Bovari 71 70 73, John Axelsen 71 70 73, Ross Mcgowan 70 70 74, Jbe Kruger 71 69 74, Keagan Thomas 72 67 75
215 - Stefan Wears-Taylor 67 74 74, Joe Long 72 69 74
216 - Steven Brown 69 72 75
217 - Jean Hugo 72 69 76, Callum Mowat 68 72 77, Hamish Brown 69 68 80