The Ladies European Tour heads to Cape Town this week at the picturesque Erinvale Country and Golf Estate, with the co-sanctioning body, the Sunshine Ladies Tour wrapping up its season with the South African Women’s Open.
This, the eighth event in the LET season, follows a quick turnaround from Johannesburg, with winner Chiara Tamburlini looking to continue her red-hot form, however defending champion Ashleigh Buhai will not take part having competed in last week’s Chevron Championship.
Both Lauren Walsh and Olivia Mehaffey are part of a 120-strong field that includes three of the top-five players on the Order of Merit in a pack comprising 34 nationalities. Five past winners will take to the course, including South African Lee-Anne Pace who is looking for her sixth title at the SA Women’s Open. 27 previous LET winners also pitch up this weekend including four from this season. Bronte Law returns to action in SA this week on top of the OOM, with last week’s imperious winner Tamburlini having shot up to second behind the Englishwoman.
Walsh comes into the week off the back of a T-41st place last week. This, the Castlewarden GC member’s 7th LET event, should prove a more attractive prospect than the bruising Modderfontein GC last week and she will hope to improve on the best finish of her burgeoning pro-career of a T16 at the Lalla Meryem Cup in February. The Wake Forest Scholar Athlete of the Year for the 2022/23 season currently sits in 40th place in the OOM and will look to push on this week to earn her first top-10 finish on tour.
Mehaffey will look to put to bed her past two events where she missed the cut in both. The Banbridge-born 26-year-old comes into this week, her 38th LET event, in 87th position on the OOM. Her tie for 23rd in this year’s Magical Kenya Ladies Open in February is her best finish of the season so far and she will hope to recover some of that form on the idyllic Erinvale.
One to watch from the Sunshine Ladies Tour this week, playing on her home-town course is ’24 winner Cara Gorlei, who will tee-off in front of friends and family tomorrow. Gorlei spoke of her excitement of playing the event on partisan territory. “It’s great to have an event here,” she said. “It means my parents can come watch as well, plus supporters from my club. It’s nice because they don’t often get to come and watch me. It’s nice that it’s an LET event too. It’s awesome that we’re getting such big coverage over here – to be able to show everyone what South Africa looks like. Especially Cape Town as Cape Town is so beautiful. It’s so cool.”
Asked about her experience of Erinvale and her thoughts of the course ahead of the week’s action, she admitted that it’s a course she knows well.
“I’m from about an hour away but I always consider anywhere in Cape Town my home,” she explained. “Once I found out we were playing here I tried to get in a couple of rounds. I maybe played three rounds, but I hadn’t played much before then. “It’s a stunning course. Absolutely beautiful. But the greens are a little bit tricky. A lot of subtle breaks which you can’t really see. The ball tends to lip out here instead of lip in! So, I think speed is pretty important. It’s a stunning course. The two nines are pretty different. The front nine is kind of straight forward and then the back nine is a bit more dog-leggy.”
Erinvale, designed by Gary Player and opened in 1995, will play as a par-72 for the four rounds this week, with pairs of par-3s and par-5s on each the front and back nines to navigate for the pack. Set to a stunning, mountainous backdrop and with vistas of the Winelands and the False Bay coastline, the course held the inaugural men’s World Cup of Golf in 1996 as well as twice hosting the men’s South African Open in ’03 and ’04.
Mehaffey will kick off her week in group 27 tomorrow on the first tee at 12.30 local time with Tvesa Malik and Sweden’s Linnea Johansson. Walsh meanwhile will begin on the 10th hole at midday with Nastasia Nadaud and Spaniard Teresa Diaz Moliner.
7.55am on the 10th tee box tomorrow sees an exciting three-ball with two of last weeks top-5 finishers including runner-up Aunchisa Utama joined by Luna Sabron and Nadia van der Westhuizen who led overnight on day-two last week.
With the weather looking fair for the week’s action, temperatures well into the mid-20s and with moderate windspeeds expected, the SA Women’s Open promises to ask all the right questions for the strong field of in-form players.
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