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Mbabane - Before the start of the final round of the Royal Swazi Open, Keith Horne said he was going to need four eagles to have a chance at winning.
In the end, one was enough, and it was the kick-start he needed for his charge to victory by one point over the man who led throughout the first three rounds, Christiaan Basson.
In an event which uses a modified stableford scoring system, eight points were allocated for an albatross, five for an eagle, two for birdies, none for pars, and one was subtracted for bogeys and three for double bogeys or worse.
Horne chipped in for eagle behind the fifth green after he had made bogey on three.
"That was the momentum shift I needed," said Horne, "especially when I heard Christiaan had got off to a ropey start."
Basson made an awful hash of the first after he pulled his drive left, dropped his approach into a greenside bunker, hit his third 20 metres over the back of the green and his fourth went back 20 metres past the pin off the green again. When his approach chip was left 20 feet short, he picked up and sucked up the loss of three points.
Horne, however, sailed on and turned with seven points in the bag and he was making up ground fast on Basson.
He drove the green on the 10th, which was set up invitingly for the attempt, and he was one of very few players who was able to take advantage of the fact.
The big push to the finish came on the 388-metre par-four 15th, where he found his drive fractionally past a tree trunk.
"Two inches shorter, and I would have had to chip out backwards," Horne said.
"I hit it into a greenside bunker, and I made a really good 15-footer for par, and that made up for the fact that I missed out on my target of one eagle per round," he added.
In fact, he almost made a second eagle for the day at the 12th, when his putt just slid right past the hole, and a hooked second on the 502-metre par-five 17th left him happy to get away with par.
The coup de grace came when he stuck his tee shot on the 175-metre 18th to 10 feet, and rammed home the winning putt.
Behind him, Basson could not get his round going after making birdie on two and bogey on three.
It looked for a brief moment as if he would scrape home when he played a wonderful second out of the left rough on the 17th and had an eagle chance which he let slip by on the right.
His birdie putt on the 18th suffered from a chronic case of nerves as he left it a metre short, and Horne had pulled off the win.
Basson edged past a trio of players who had also charged for the lead: Bradford Vaughan made eagle on 17 to move into a share of third and Jaco van Zyl looked to be on course for his second title at the event in two years as he recorded his best score of the week with five birdies and an eagle.
But the thrill-a-minute round came from Darren Fichardt, who made nine birdies in his final round, and that included putts missing by millimetres over each of the last five holes for birdie - or eagle in the case of 17.
In the end, Horne blew past them all with his lone eagle.
Scores (RSA unless specified):
47 - Keith Horne 10 10 11 16
46 - Christiaan Basson 16 13 17 0
45 - Darren Fichardt 6 10 12 17, Jaco Van Zyl 9 12 9 15, Bradford Vaughan 13 13 9 10
44 - Jaco Ahlers 12 9 12 11
40 - Irvin Mazibuko 15 11 -1 15
39 - Andre Cruse 12 7 11 9, Mark Murless 7 11 7 14
38 - Dion Fourie 8 14 7 9, Albert Pistorius 3 11 15 9, Omar Sandys 13 15 2 8
37 - PH McIntyre 8 14 5 10, Merrick Bremner 11 5 12 9, Jake Roos 8 16 7 6, Toto Thimba (Jnr) 14 10 7 6
36 - Alex Haindl 11 8 5 12, Jean Hugo 8 7 8 13, Ulrich van den Berg 8 8 12 8, Justin Walters 3 19 4 10, Hendrik Buhrmann 10 6 13 7, Brandon Pieters 6 9 10 11, Oliver Bekker 1 17 12 6
35 - Lindani Ndwandwe 11 8 5 11, Darren Blair 10 1 13 11, Vaughn Groenewald 10 10 7 8, Alan Michell 5 15 6 9, Charl Coetzee 9 9 7 10
34 - Peter Karmis 9 10 8 7, Neil Schietekat 9 15 7 3
33 - Thabang Simon 14 9 11 -1
32 - Clinton Whitelaw 11 8 8 5
30 - Prinavin Nelson 4 7 9 10, Attie Schwartzel 10 6 6 8, Jacques Blaauw 8 13 2 7
29 - Shaun Norris 1 11 9 8, Grant Muller 4 14 4 7, Marc Cayeux (ZIM) 12 1 11 5
28 - Chris Swanepoel 10 2 9 7, Daniel Greene 10 8 7 3
27 - Neil Cheetham (ENG) 6 6 3 12, Kevin Stone 7 5 5 10
26 - Doug McGuigan 15 5 -1 7, Josh Cunliffe 4 7 9 6
23 - Eugen Marugi 2 10 2 9, Des Terblanche 1 11 10 1
18 - James Kamte 9 3 -1 7, Cameron Johnston 13 7 -1 -1
17 - David Hewan 6 6 1 4, Divan van den Heever 7 5 4 1
