Scotland’s golfers enjoyed a shimmering day in the Rainbow Nation yesterday as Scott Jamieson moved into a share of the halfway lead at the European Tour’s Tshwane Open in Pretoria while Liam Johnston won the African Amateur Strokeplay Championship at Leopard Creek.
Jamieson, whose only tour win came on South African soil in the 2013 Nelson Mandela Championship, bolstered his assault on a second title as he packed seven birdies into a six-under 65 to finish in a tie at the top with Sweden’s Alexander Bjork on a 10-under 132. The leading duo were heading into the weekend just a stroke clear of Englishman James Morrison. “I struggled a bit tee to green last week, but it seems to have clicked here,” said Jamieson, who illuminated his card with four birdies in five holes from the fifth.
Duncan Stewart (72), Richie Ramsay (70) and Marc Warren (70) all sit on the four-under mark but Scott Henry missed his seventh cut in a row after a damaging 76 saw him fall short of the mark by a stroke.
On the amateur front, meanwhile, Dumfries man Johnston was celebrating the biggest win of his career as he led a Scottish one-two-three in the African event.
Johnston, who reached the quarter-finals of last week’s South African Amateur Championship, had been two shots behind 54-hole leader Christo Lamprecht but pounced on the back nine as his 16-year-old title rival stumbled to a crippling brace of double-bogeys. Johnston closed with a one-under 71 for an eight-under 280 and won by a shot from fellow Doonhamer Connor Syme with Renfrewshire’s Jamie Stewart taking third on 282.
I’m absolutely ecstatic,” said Johnston. “I feel like I finally got the money off my back. I won a lot of team events when I was at the University of Tennessee, but I never won an individual title. I can’t begin to describe how amazing it feels to land this victory.”
On the women’s scene, Inbee Park, the former world No 1, was leading the HSBC Women’s Champions event in Singapore by a shot with a 10-under tally.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here