Liam Grehan and Rowan Lester’s maiden Sunshine Tour campaigns are up-and-running as the Irish duo are both safely through to the weekend at the Kit Kat Cash & Carry Pro-Am at Irene Country Club.
Playing in back-to-back groups again, Grehan was out first and, having carded a one-under 71 in the opening round, knew he’d need to improve his scoring if he was to play all four rounds.
Starting on the 10th, he birdied the par-5 opener and added two more on the back side to make the turn at -3.
Another birdie followed on the first, before his only bogey of the day on the par-4 third. He recovered to card two more birdies over the closing four holes and the five-under 66 lifted him into a share of 24th.
“I played nicely,” Grehan said afterwards. “I’m hitting the ball great. I’m fighting a bit of a bit of a cold at the moment so the energy levels weren’t great, but I was happy to be playing early and not crashing in the afternoon.
“But I hit the ball really well, hit loads of greens, and had lots of chances. I actually didn’t make that many putts. I had a few from inside five feet and I took those, whereas, if the the putter got hot I could have gone really low, but I’m pretty pleased with where I’m at.”
Grehan had to navigate the pre-qualifier on Tuesday and he actually feels that it may have been a blessing in disguise.
“You can hammer about in practice rounds but playing a competitive round on the course, you get a better feel for it and you can learn a bit more when you’re in the zone of a tournament setting.
“You don’t necessarily want to be in a pre-qualifier, but if you get through it, it can be a benefit. But if I finish top-10 here I get straight into the next event, so that’s the goal now.”
Lester’s afternoon wasn’t quite as relaxed as Grehan’s was. After finishing with a two-under on day one, he traded two birdies and a bogey on his opening eight holes and carded 10 straight pars to complete his second round. This left him on -3 for the week, and just the right side of the cutline but with the afternoon wave yet to come.
“I played well all day yesterday,” Lester said, “I just got unlucky on the second hole, going out of bounds by a yard trying to be aggressive, but you have to be aggressive out here because the scoring is so good. But I hung in and finished well [eagle-birdie] and I hung in well again today.
“I was a bit scrappy on the front nine today [his second nine] and had a few good up-and-downs to keep myself in it. I actually lipped-out a seven-footer on the last, so hopefully that doesn’t haunt me.
“You can’t really free up when you’re on the cut line, whereas when you’re well inside it, you feel like if you drop a shot or two, you’re still fine and then if you gain, great, so you can you can really free up whereas on the line you’re just constantly thinking about it.”
As the day progressed, it looked more and more likely that he’d have that weekend tee time and so it proved, with 55 players at -3 or better and the made cut comes with an added bonus.
“We’ve been told that if you make a cut in one of the first four events, you’ll likely be inside the top 100 in the rankings when the re-rank comes after four events so you’ll likely get straight into most of the other Sunshine Tour events, so just getting that box ticked off early would be nice,” Lester added.
South African Jonathan Broomhead was one of three players to card a 63 on the day, and his round was enough to give him a one-stroke lead over Mexican Luis Carrera who followed his opening 63 with a 67 to move to -14.
Dylan Fritelli, a mutiple DP World Tour and one-time PGA Tour winner is the most high-profile name on the leaderboard, and he tracks the leading duo in a share of fourth at -12 with -10 currently in a share of ninth.
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