South Africa's George Coetzee could turn a last minute call up into the Volvo World Match Play Championship into easily the biggest payday of his career after producing a brilliant display to beat Ryder Cup star Patrick Reed.
Coetzee only got into the event on Monday as a replacement for the injured Thomas Bjørn and at 89th in the world was the lowest ranked player in the 16 man field.
But the 28 year old was eight under par in beating Reed 2 and 1 in their quarter-final in blustery conditions at London Golf Club and is just two more wins away from the first prize of 650,000 euros. His previous biggest cheque of 206,000 euros came from winning his first European Tour title in the Joburg Open in February.
Asked about his underdog ranking, Coetzee - who will face Henrik Stenson in the last four after the World Number Five beat fellow Swede Jonas Blixt by two holes - said: “It’s nice that everybody thinks that.
“I've actually been playing nicely the last couple of weeks. My ranking took a knock this year, but it's starting to come together nicely.”
Coetzee finished 21st in the rain-shortened Portugal Masters on Sunday and admitted he would have flown home to South Africa if any flights were available.
But when tournament organisers told him he was first reserve and that they wanted him on site, he asked his manager to check if anyone was likely to withdraw.
"I told him the only guy who might was Thomas Bjørn because he was the oldest guy and he might be tired of playing golf," Coetzee added. "He phoned me back and said the rumour was true and Bjørn had withdrawn. I told him it wasn't a rumour, I had just made it up!
"If my flight had been Sunday night it would have been a totally different story. It could be lucrative timing."
Reed, who was the United States' top points scorer on his debut at Gleneagles, said: "I played well and any time you are six under you would hopefully win the match but George played extremely well.
"He beat me in extra holes in the Accenture Match Play earlier this year but that was a match where we both played really poorly and it was more of a pillow fight. Today was just one of those things about match play - even if you play really well you can still get beat."
Stenson and Coetzee met in the group stages on Wednesday and finished all square, the latter adding: "He kind of gave me that half. He missed a putt to win the match on the 17th and three-putted the last so I won't be going in feeling too confident."
Stenson was three up on a wayward Blixt with five holes to play but saw his compatriot birdie the 14th and 15th to force the match to the last.
"Everyone comes back at me," Stenson said. "No one lets me have an easy finish here, which you kind of expect that but not every time. He definitely pushed an old man all the way to the last there and made it very interesting."
The second last four encounter will see the Netherlands’ Joost Luiten take on Finland's Mikko Ilonen after the pair enjoyed contrasting wins over Pablo Larrazábal and Victor Dubuisson respectively.
Luiten maintained his 100 per cent record - he was the only player to win all three of his group matches - and recorded the largest winning margin of the week by thrashing Larrazábal 6 and 5, while Ilonen beat an erratic Dubuisson by two holes.
The 28 year old was gifted the opening hole when Larrazábal found water with his approach to the par five, and then won the second, fifth, sixth and seventh to move five up.
Luiten advanced further ahead with a birdie on the 11th and even when Larrazábal collected just his second gain of the day at the next, Luiten followed him in from 20 feet for a half before closing out the match on the 13th.
"The course is playing soft so I think a lot of the boys out there are having a lot of birdies and you really have to make birdies to win holes," said Luiten, who won the ISPS Handa Wales Open last month.
"A lot of times you make birdie and you only halve the hole. You have to be aggressive and stay aggressive in this format and I've done that well in the last couple of days."
Dubuisson recorded two eagles and five birdies but also made bogeys on three of the four par threes while Ilonen carded eight birdies and no dropped shots.
"It felt like it could have gone either way and I was lucky to come out on top in the end," Ilonen said. "The goal was obviously to play all week and we're there. So now we just have to keep pushing."
