Neil Schietekat fired a final round 67 to return to the winner’s circle for the first time in five years at the Sun City Challenge at the Gary Player Country Club.
The 34-year-old admitted he’d begun to doubt whether he can win again with a wave of relief hitting him after prevailing by one stroke over Louis de Jager.
‘It feels amazing,’ said Schietekat.
‘Just the other day I was thinking I don’t know if I was going to win again. You know, when you have not won for so long, you don’t know if you can do it again.’
That winless run ended this week. While he went into the final round trailing overnight leader, Jbe’ Kruger, by four shots, Schietekat knew he was not out of it yet and had a real opportunity to make it two wins to his name.
He got off to a flying start in the final round, making back-to-back birdies on the first two holes before making a par on the 3rd. He looked like he’d lose ground in the race for the top spot on the leaderboard when he dropped a shot on the par-three 4th hole. He would not make any other bogey on the front nine, and to the contrary, he collected three more birdies on his way to a five-under 67 final round.
‘I said to my caddie –I had Ray on the bag for the first time this week – “pars are a friend out here and if you make birdies, it’s good. If he [Kruger] comes back to us then obviously we’ve got a chance, which he can because this is a tough golf course”,’ he said of his mindset during the round.
It was on the back nine where he seemed to struggle a bit. Despite making three birdies there – on the 10th, 14th and 16th – he also dropped shots on the 12th and the 13th. At this point, however, most of the work had been done.
‘I just hit great shots, good putts. The first week the putter is in the bag, the first week the caddie and we worked nicely together. It was a nice week. The putter was on and I think I had 25 putts today, so the putter was hot and if the putter is hot and you’re hitting it half decently, you’re going to win,’ he added.
While a second win has eluded Schietekat for the last half a decade, he had a really solid 2017-18 season where he had eight top 10s which included that runner-up finish at the Sun Carnival Challenge which was won by Kruger. That form didn’t quite carry through to this season because in the six events played thus far, he missed the cut twice (Zanaco Masters and Old Mutual Zimbabwe Open), finished 40th at the Investec Swazi Open and 33rd at the Lombard Insurance Classic before claiming the Sun City Challenge.
Final leaderboard:
210 – Neil Schietekat 71 72 67
211 – Louis de Jager 70 72 69
212 – Jbe’ Kruger 75 64 73
213 – Ulrich van den Berg 72 71 70
215 – Ockie Strydom 73 73 69
216 – Justin Harding 69 74 73
217 – Riekus Nortje 68 77 72, Stephen Ferreira 73 72 72
218 – Merrick Bremner 74 72 72
219 – Anton Haig 77 70 72, Estiaan Conradie 69 78 72
220 – Keith Horne 76 74 70, Jade Buitendag 75 74 71, Jaco Prinsloo 73 75 72, Mark Williams 74 73 73, Jacquin Hess 76 70 74, Heinrich Bruiners 72 74 74
221 – Philip Geerts 74 76 71, Andrew Curlewis 74 76 71, Vaughn Groenewald 75 72 74
222 – Jacques P de Villiers 76 74 72, Desvonde Botes 74 75 73, Jaco Ahlers 76 72 74, Christiaan Basson 70 78 74, Jake Redman 74 73 75, Hennie Otto 75 72 75, Franklin Manchest 73 72 77
223 – MJ Viljoen 73 77 73, JJ Senekal 72 77 74, Doug McGuigan 72 75 76, Chris Cannon 76 71 76, JC Ritchie 71 76 76
224 – Alex Haindl 75 75 74, Combrinck Smit 79 70 75
225 – Jean Hugo 76 71 78, Wallie Coetsee 71 72 82
226 – Teboho Sefatsa 76 73 77, Callum Mowat 75 73 78, Andre Nel 75 73 78
227 – Herman Loubser 73 76 78
228 – Keenan Davidse 76 74 78
233 – Fredrik From 73 77 83
RTD – Titch Moore 73 74 RTD
