Prinsloo wins Joburg City Masters
[Thursday, June 15, 2017 18:14:57]Jaco Prinsloo carded a four-under-par 68 final round at the Joburg City Masters at Country Club Johannesburg on Thursday, to total 12-under-par and win his first Big Easy Tour event since 2013.
“I won a Big Easy event in 2013 or 2014 – I’m not sure – in Kempton Park. It’s been a while since I won on the Big Easy,” he said after his win, “but, it’s very nice to win the co-sanctioned event with the MENA Tour. It just feels like it’s a step higher.”
Prinsloo came into final round one shot back of Jamie Elson who was on nine-under. He quickly took the lead while Elson fell back and Omar Sandys was making upward movement on the leaderboard.
“The last leaderboard was on hole number 15’s green,” Prinsloo said of the pressure that was being applied by the chasing pack, “and, I still had a three-shot lead there. And I thought ‘OK, this looks pretty simple’, and all of a sudden on 17, Omar (Sandys) was on 10-under and put some pressure on me. But luckily I kept calm and put the ball in the right spaces, and yeah got it done.”
The change of mindset he spoke about earlier in the tournament seems to have stood him in good stead in Johannesburg, as Sandys really looked like he would snatch it underneath Prinsloo’s nose.
“Well, I just had to keep doing the things I have done the last two days,” he said, “and, it’s always a little bit tougher to do that on the last day; a little bit more pressure. But, I managed to and kept calm and that got the trick done here.”
Member of the Gary Player Class of 2017-18, Sandys, fell two shots adrift of Prinsloo, while fellow squad member in that development programme, Jacquin Hess, settled for a shared third with Jeff Inglis of England and Francois Coetzee, on seven-under.
Scores:
204 - Jaco Prinsloo 69 67 68
206 - Omar Sandys 68 71 67
209 - Jacquin Hess 66 74 69, Jeff Inglis 68 71 70, Francois Coetzee 68 70 71
210 - Jamie Elson 68 67 75
211 - Henric Sturehed 68 72 71, Matthew Carvell 69 70 72, Jason Smith 72 66 73
212 - Luke Jerling 73 68 71, Antonio Costa 72 69 71, Stuart Smith 69 69 74
213 - Fredrik From 70 71 72, Allan Versfeld 73 71 69, Dayne Moore 69 70 74
214 - Makhetha Mazibuko 71 71 72, Combrinck Smit 69 72 73, Sean Bradley 67 72 75, Breyten Meyer 69 70 75, Maritz Wessels 70 67 77
215 - Andrew van der Knaap 71 72 72, Jacques P de Villiers 75 68 72, Wynand Dingle 75 69 71, Dean O'Riley 73 72 70, Duane Keun 75 71 69
216 - Danie Van Niekerk 70 73 73, Tyler Hogarty 73 73 70
217 - Allister de Kock 71 71 75, Chris Cannon 73 72 72, PH McIntyre 74 72 71
218 - Craig Hinton 70 73 75, Ryan Cairns 74 69 75, Pieter Kruger 72 71 75, Quintin Wilsnach 76 68 74
219 - Anton Haig 73 69 77, Max Smith 73 69 77, Musiwalo Nethunzwi 68 75 76, Morne Buys 73 67 79, Irvin Mazibuko 76 68 75, Drikus van der Walt 70 76 73, Arthur Horne 76 70 73
220 - Craig Kieswetter 70 71 79, Aubrey Beckley 73 72 75, Eddy Holland 68 77 75, Antonio Rosado 75 71 74
222 - Russel Franz 73 68 81
223 - Jeff Hopkins 71 75 77, Gert Myburgh 72 74 77
224 - Matthew Spacey 73 71 80, Sam Hobday 75 71 78
225 - Marco de Beer 72 70 83, Teagan Moore 72 71 82, Brett Liddle 67 76 82
WDN - Stefan Engell Andersen 72 73 WDN