Daniel van Tonder will take a two-stroke lead into the final round of the Limpopo Championship, despite posting a two over par 74 on day three at Euphoria Golf Club.
The South African was unable to add to his ten under par total after the first two rounds, instead dropping back to eight under par but remaining two shots clear of South African duo Oliver Bekker and Brandon Stone, Norway’s Kristian Krogh Johannessen and German Marcel Siem, who all share second place on six under par.
van Tonder, who won his first European Tour title at the Kenya Savannah Classic supported by Absa last month, credited his wife and caddie Abi for her help in keeping his third round to only two over par when, he admits, it could have been a lot worse.
“I shot two over today but it could have been worse,” he said. “If it wasn’t for Abi with her club selections and the distances she gave me and keeping me calm and stuff, it could have been a bit worse. I could have been tied for the lead or something but hats off to her.
“I trust her completely. On the tee box I ask her ‘where is it?’ and I trust her because she’s never really wrong, it’s just sometimes me who doubts where it is. I’ve learned the hard way to trust her – when she says that, I do that.
“The sixth hole, the previous two days I hit driver, gap wedge, then today I hit driver, six iron and I was still short of the green. It was quite tough. The greens are getting firmer and firmer and if you hit your shots out of the rough, it’s quite hard to keep it on the greens.”
Following benign conditions on the opening two days, the wind picked up on day three which made low scoring incredibly tough, with only 11 players posting under par third rounds, spearheaded by four-time European Tour winner Siem, whose four under par 68 was the low round of the day.
World Number 98 Stone, a three-time European Tour winner, carded a three under par round of 69 on day three as he jumped 25 spots on the leaderboard and moved into contention.
Stone, who graduated from the Challenge Tour in 2015, believes the three co-sanctioned events with the Sunshine Tour are a great opportunity for South African players to enhance their careers.
“I said at the beginning of the week, having three co-sanctioned events with the Challenge Tour is a tremendous opportunity for any up and coming Sunshine Tour player,” Stone said.
“This is definitely a platform for those type of guys to show their worth, to show their class and to move the needle a little bit with regard to their careers. There’s a lot of names up there, obviously Danie is playing some incredible golf at the moment but there are a lot of guys who are very hungry to take their talents abroad.”
Behind the quartet in tied second are a further four players in a tie for sixth on five under par, including France’s Jeong weon Ko and South African trio Louis Albertse, Jaco Prinsloo and MJ Viljoen, with nine players a shot further back on four under par.
The final round of the Limpopo Championship will begin at 7:40am local time on Sunday April 25, with the final group of van Tonder, Siem and Stone getting under way at 9:20am.
