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McGuigan wins at Sun City

Sun City - Doug McGuigan took a conscious decision recently to keep his cool when he dropped a shot, and it paid off with an ice-cool two-stroke victory in the Nashua Golf Challenge.

The tournament was played on the Gary Player Country Club and the Lost City Golf Course, with the final round returning to the Gary Player layout.

He shot a superb 66 in the opening round – a round he characterises as “perhaps the best round of my life” – but the course was a different animal on the final day, and he made three birdies to keep himself on track in a round that had four bogeys.

“I’ve been playing nicely the past few weeks. I just haven’t been putting it together, and my frustration levels have been more than I can handle,” said McGuigan.

“This week, I’ve managed to keep it together and made a conscious effort not to get upset after a bogey, and it helps,” he added.

To show how tough the course became for the final round, there was only one score of under 70: A surging Jaco van Zyl shot six birdies in the opening nine, but two bogeys and a double bogey pretty much stymied his charge, and not even one more bogey was enough to lift him beyond his final third place.

Adilson Da Silva shot a 70 to finish in a share of 10th, and there were three scores of 71: Desvondes Botes, Theunis Spangenberg and Neil Cheetham got that right, but the rest of the field shot par or worse.

So McGuigan’s round was as good as it got on the final day, especially after he made back-to-back bogeys on 14 and 15 to let the chasers within one stroke.

In second eventually was Tyrone van Aswegen, who goes close week after week, but his final 74 left him two shots behind McGuigan.

“On this golf course, anything around level par is obviously well played,” said McGuigan. “I figured if I could get it to level for the day, then anyone was going to struggle to catch me.”

And such was his concentration, that even when he turned at halfway with four players just a shot off his pace, he took in only that he was in the lead: “I saw I was leading, and that was okay, so I told myself to just keep going.”

Final scores (RSA unless specified):


209 - Doug McGuigan 66 70 73
211 - Tyrone van Aswegen 69 68 74
212 - Jaco Van Zyl 70 73 69, Oliver Bekker 70 69 73, James Kamte 70 68 74, Neil Schietekat 73 63 76
213 - Christiaan Basson 71 65 77
214 - Desvonde Botes 73 70 71, Chris Williams 71 70 73
215 - Adilson da Silva (BRA) 73 72 70, Andrew Curlewis 68 74 73, Keith Horne 73 68 74, Jake Roos 71 69 75
216 - Theunis Spangenberg 72 73 71
217 - Mohamed Tayob 72 73 72, Warren Abery 69 75 73
218 - Albert Pistorius 75 70 73, Andre Cruse 72 71 75, Grant Muller 72 71 75, Hendrik Buhrmann 71 70 77, Brandon Pieters 71 69 78
220 - Neil Cheetham (ENG) 73 76 71, Darren Holder 71 74 75, Merrick Bremner 76 67 77, Wallie Coetsee 73 69 78
221 - Ryan Tipping 78 68 75, Brett Liddle 70 73 78
222 - Omar Sandys 77 72 73, Don Black 72 73 77
223 - Jaco Ahlers 75 74 74, Louis de Jager 78 69 76, Ulrich van den Berg 72 74 77, Nic Henning 76 69 78, Keenan Davidse 74 69 80
224 - Michiel Bothma 74 74 76, Steve van Vuuren 75 73 76, Peter Karmis 78 67 79
225 - Titch Moore 77 72 76, Reggie Adams 78 71 76, Louis Moolman 76 68 81
226 - Dean Lambert 73 75 78
227 - Jean Hugo 72 74 81
228 - Shaun Norris 70 74 84
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