Swazi win a dream come true for Conradie
Pretoria golfer Ruan Conradie made his big break on the Sunshine Tour when he won the Royal Swazi Sun Challenge last week.
He didn’t drop a shot until the final hole on Friday, when it didn’t matter any more, and Pretoria’s Ruan Conradie still cruised to his maiden Sunshine Tour victory in the Royal Swazi Sun Challenge at the Royal Swazi Spa Country Club.
Even with the dropped shot, he still carded a six-under-par 66 to finish 18-under for the tournament and one stroke clear of Paul Boshoff, Anthony Michael and Jaco van Zyl – all of whom put a lot of pressure on Conradie with rounds of 63, 64 and 65 respectively.
“It’s awesome. This is what dreams are made of. When I get up in the morning and I think about it – it’s definitely been a dream of mine since I was a kid. I’m just happy to be chasing the dream,” laughed Conradie afterwards.
With the chasing pack all going so low, the last round was a busy day for the young pro golfer from the Wingate Park Country Club in Pretoria.
“It was a rollercoaster. I started off feeling some nerves, got through that and then started making some putts. From there, it was smooth sailing up until the last couple of holes when I realised I was ahead and I needed to know what I was doing. I just felt that playing defensive golf was a lot harder than attacking,” he said.
In truth, Conradie had grabbed this tournament by the scruff of its neck from the very first round, during which he carded a superlative 11-under-par 61. That meant he was able to ride out the inevitable come-down after that with a scrappy second-round 71, and then close things out with his closing 66.
He’d already shown his affinity with the Royal Swazi Spa Country Club layout, with a share of 16th in the Investec Royal Swazi Open and a solo fourth in the Lombard Insurance Classic in May. In seven rounds there until this week, his worst score was his closing 73 in the Investec Royal Swazi Open, and all the rest were in the 60s.
It was because he had done so well in the two earlier tournaments that he was able to post that decisive opening score.
On the final day he hit a wayward tee shot on 18, and had a tough job to scramble for his bogey on the difficult par-three, but he knew that bogey would be enough.
“It was a like a bunch of bricks was listed from my shoulders,” he said. “It was the greatest feeling in the world. After all the celebrations, I guess I’m going to have to search for some new dreams now,” an ecstatic Conradie concluded.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
