Rowan Lester’s first made cut on the Sunshine Tour resulted in a T33 finish and both he and Liam Grehan have gone a long way to securing their status in the re-rank which comes after four events.
The Hermitage man made the cut on the number but followed with back-to-back rounds of 69 to work his way up the leaderboard.
Starting his final round on the 10th, Lester opened his birdie account on the par-3 13th but a double bogey on the next undid the early good work and he had to find another birdie on the 17th – he played that hole in six-under for the week – to claw his way back to level-par at the turn.
He was still level for the day four holes later after trading a birdie and a bogey, but he birdied three of his final five holes to surge back up the leaderboard.
Grehan had been battling a cold all week but still managed to play his way through the pre-qualifier and through the opening two rounds before hitting the wall on day three. A second successive six-over left him in 67th place, but he still earns Order of Merit ranking points which will be valuable come the re-rank which follows the Zambia Open in a fortnight’s time and precedes the eight-week mid-season break.
After winning the season-opening Zimbabwe Open last week, Mexico’s Luis Carrera continued his hot streak by following up with the Kit Kat Cash & Carry Pro-Am title, and he made it look easy.
Starting the day with a two-stroke lead over Dylan Fritelli, Carrera birdied five of his opening nine holes to streak clear and then followed up with an eagle on 10 to cast aside any doubt that he’d hold one.
He then birdied three of the following eight, including the final two, to card a 62 – the low round of the week – and win by 10 over a quartet of South Africans who shared second on -20.
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