Kruger’s putter proves the difference at Wanderers
Pretoria’s Pieter Kruger won his third tournament on the Big Easy Tour this week at the Wanderers in Johannesburg.
Pieter Kruger claimed his third victory on the Big Easy Tour (BET) when he won the Wanderers Tournament on the first play-off hole against Antonio Rosado on Tuesday.
Kruger, who runs the Colbyn Golf Park in Pretoria, came into the final round sitting pretty among the leading five players after signing for four-under-par 67. He started the final round with a nerve-calming birdie before going on to make four more on the day. However, a double bogey on 15 took from those birdies to leave him on two under-par and tied with Rosado.
Despite a tightly contested affair at Wanderers where at one stage it looked like there would be four or more players involved in the play-off, Kruger held on until it was only he and Rosado.
“It was a tricky two-putt. It’s slow on the uphill but I managed to two-putt,” Kruger said of the winning putt on the play-off hole.
Having come from a difficult contest in Houghton a week ago where he was 53rd, Kruger returned to winning ways and credits that to his putting.
“The last two months were quite difficult for me. Even last week at Houghton, the golf wasn’t good. But the putting has improved a lot from last week,” he said.
With one BET event left before the winter swing of the Sunshine Tour begins, Kruger feels he is setting himself up well for the demanding schedule ahead.
“This is a good start. You can call it pre-season if you like. So hopefully I will just carry the momentum through,” he explained.
Despite a gallant effort to claim a maiden victory on the BET circuit, Rosado will have to wait a while longer to enter the winners’ circle. With three top-10 finishes this season, the Portuguese Rosado has been knocking for a while but Wanderers was not to be.
Tied third was Morne Buys, Etienne Bond, Kyle Barker and veteran Omar Sandys who has also been raising his hand to claim a long-awaited win. Rounding out the top-10 was Drikus van der Walt, Tyrone Ryan, Dylan O’Leary and last week’s winner Wynand Dingle.
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