Winner Chris Williams: By Michael Sheehan
Chris Williams shot a final 3-under par 69 on Thursday to become the inaugural Nelson Mandela Bay Classic golf champion at a windy Humewood links.
Williams finished with a 54-hole total of three-under-par 213 to finish one shot ahead of Neil Cheetham and two clear of Andre Cruse, who both had closing rounds of 71.
Grant Muller surged through the field with a 69 of his own for solo 4th on an even par total in the Sunshine Senior Tour’s first visit to Nelson Mandela Bay.
The timing of the victory couldn’t have been better for Williams. At the end of this month both he and James Kingston will travel to Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to play in the US Senior PGA Championship.
“It’s nice to have won like this just before you leave for a Major like that,” said Williams, who recently finished second to Kingston in the South African Senior Open at Plettenberg Bay Golf Club.
“I won a small senior event at the beginning of the year. But this is my first big one since winning the South African Senior Open a couple of years ago. I haven’t hit the ball as well as I did for a long time. I’ve put new shafts in my irons and I was knocking the flagsticks out. And it was also great to beat such a quality field,” he said of a field that included several former Sunshine Tour campaigners who have recently joined the Sunshine Senior Tour ranks.
“We’ve got a lot of former Sunshine Tour players on the Sunshine Senior Tour now and the standard is very high. Then you look at the quality of golfers who are just about to turn 50 and become seniors, like Keith Horne and Adilson da Silva, and you realise we’re going to have a very competitive Sunshine Senior Tour in the future with so many star players coming through.”
Williams also acknowledged all those who worked behind the scenes to put the R500 000 event on the national calendar. “It’s fantastic that Neville Clarke (chief operations officer) has managed to secure this tournament for another three years at Humewood because there is so much potential on our tour nowadays.”
Leading final round scores:
213 – Chris Williams 71 73 69
214 – Neil Cheetham 72 71 71
215 – Andre Cruse 70 74 71
216 – Grant Muller 74 73 69
217 – Mark McNulty 75 71 71, Doug McGuigan 75 71 71
218 – James Kingston 69 75 74, Gerhard Scheepers 74 69 75
219 – Paul Marks 73 75 71, Kenneth Dube 73 74 72
