Haydn Porteous finished sixth at the weekend in the Made in Denmark event on the European Tour, and it signalled a welcome – and timeous – return to form in a year which has been somewhat forgettable for the 2016 Joburg Open champion.
Porteous opened with a 70 in Denmark last week, and followed that up with three consecutive rounds in the 60s. His 67-68-67 finish saw him card a tournament total of 12-under-par, seven shots off the fine winning total of 19-under by American Julian Suri.
And that saw him climb into 105th spot on the Race to Dubai rankings, within striking distance of the top 100 who will retain their European Tour cards for the 2018 season. So, with eight tournaments, as well as the final World Golf Championships event of the year, the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, left in the regular season ahead of the Final Series, he has a chance to ride that good form into the top 100 and secure his position on next year’s circuit.
In addition, he will be keen to convert the good form he’s discovered into a run at a place in the top 60, the group of players which will make up the field for the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai on November 16.
A run like that will also get him into the two Final Series events preceding Dubai, the Turkish Airlines Championship and the Nedbank Golf Challenge at the Gary Player Country Club in Sun City on November 9.
‘I hope I’ll be playing that course later on in the year,’ said Porteous. ‘It’s been a topsy-turvy year for me. I’ve put some really good rounds together, but I just can’t seem to put for of them together in a row.’
That changed at the weekend, and it has perhaps heralded the start of his coming to grips with European conditions. ‘In South Africa, you can peg it high and let it fly,’ he said. ‘In Europe, it’s not as warm and the wind’s blowing and there’s a lot more trouble around the fairways.
‘The courses are very different to look at, and with the different grasses, it’s pretty tough to be as confident as you would be around the greens in South Africa.’
Clearly, some of the confidence which made his such an impressive winner at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington in last year’s Joburg Open is back.
He’d love it to continue and flourish.
