Rowan Lester produced a stunning, seven-under-par round of 63 to make a final-round charge at the Sunshine Tour’s Sunbet Challenge hosted by Sun Sibaya at Mount Edgecombe in Durban.
The Hermitage man began the final round five shots in arrears and sharing 16th place, but a fast start in which he carded birdies on the second, fourth, sixth, and seventh holes – all par-4s – saw him close the gap before a bogey on the ninth.
He responded in ideal fashion with another par-4 birdie on 10, and after parring 11, two superb swings on 12 saw him find the dancefloor in two on the par-5 and he sank the eagle putt to move to six-under for the day.
He had birdie putts on each of the next four holes but couldn’t get them to drop, but a good par save on 17 kept his outside chances of victory alive and he finished the week in style with a birdie at the last to take the clubhouse lead at -12.
Unfortunately, though he was able to reel in 14 of the 15 players who began the day ahead of him, South African Samuel Simpson shot a five-under 65 to finish one shot clear on -13, but Lester was extremely proud of the way he’d played over the final two days and how he handled himself once he found himself contending for a maiden victory on the circuit.
“Yeah, the game was very good the last two days,” Lester said afterwards. “I actually didn’t drive it as well as I could’ve, but when I missed, I didn’t miss by much and missed in the right spots, so I was still able to give myself good chances.
“It’s great to be playing well again. I felt like I played well the last week but the greens weren’t great and that held a lot of people back, but I’m very happy with how I played today and very happy with how I handled myself today.
“I felt quite comfortable coming down the stretch in contention and with the cameras on me – a little nervous, but quite comfortable.”
The result sees him climb to 28th on the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit and he’s targeting two further strong finishes which he believes should be enough to see him exempt into the co-sanctioned events with the DP World Tour which carry elevated rankings points and prizemoney.
“Yeah, it’s a big jump,” he said. “I’ve been saying that you need a few big weeks and that’s one notched off. Two more of those and I should be in all those big events, so there’s lots of golf to be played and we’ve got a lot of tournaments over the next 11 or 12 weeks so it’s a great time to be hitting some form.”
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