Rowan Lester secured the highest finish of his rookie season on the Sunshine Tour with a final-round, two-under-par 70 that moved him up to 14th on the final leaderboard at the FNB Eswatini Challenge.
On the Sunshine Tour’s return to competition following the mid-season break, Lester found himself sharing 15th going into the third and final round after rounds of 67 and 70, and he got off to an ideal start with a birdie on the first but followed with a double bogey on the second.
He regrouped and battled his way back into red figures with back-to-back birdies on five and six, and made the turn at one-under for the day. A bogey on 10 dropped him back to level-par, but two excellent shots saw him find the dancefloor on the par-5 12th in two, and he sank the putt for an eagle to get to -2.
And that’s how he’d finish, trading a bogey on 15 with a birdie on 17, and the share of 14th at -9 was enough to see him climb almost 30 places in the Order of Merit rankings, where he now sits 66th.
The week belonged to South African Michael Hollick, who found himself in the lead with 18 to go and never surrendered it, opening up a six-stroke lead before a double bogey and strong finishes from the chasing pack reduced his advantage to two at the week’s end.
He beat fellow South Africans Herman Loubser and Pieter Moolman into joint second on -14, with German Allen John and South African Paul Boshoff sharing fourth a shot further back.
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