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Kruyswijk zooms into lead

North West Province - Jacques Kruyswijk made six consecutive birdies around the stretch at Mooinooi Golf Club on Friday to clinch a one-stroke lead after round two at the Platinum Classic.

“This is a first for me and it’s amazing to be leading! I’m learning with every tournament and it’s phenomenal to be in this position,” he said.
The rookie from Pretoria played his way into the R500,000 event through pre-qualifying and then carded 67 for round one. His Friday 65 turned the week into something of a fairytale as he moved nine places up the leaderboard into sole first.

After a shaky start the 20-year-old composed himself with a birdie at the fourth before dominating from the tee. Capitalizing on the shortness of the course, Kruyswijk made six consecutive birdies from the sixth to the 11th to cement his place atop the leaderboard. A final gain at the 17th put him one stroke clear.

“I started badly on the first and just had a quick chat with my caddie. We decided that we had to pull it back. On the short hole, the sixth, I hit a really nice seven-iron to three metres and that got some momentum going. After that I just kept hitting it close and all of the putts dropped!” he laughed.

While he’s already clocked up a win on the Sunshine Big Easy Tour, Friday marked Kruyswijk’s first time leading on the main tour, but that was far from the young gun’s mind.

“I’m going to stick with my game plan tomorrow. I shouldn’t change the things that have worked for the last two days, so tomorrow I’m going to keep playing attacking golf,” he said.

A stroke back and looking all kinds of dangerous was Neil Schietekat, who shot 68 on Friday to claim sole second on 11-under. He was followed by Michael Hollick and Doug McGuigan, who shared third on 10-under-par, while 10 players shared fifth on nine-under. The hugely bunched leaderboard guarantees a mouth-watering final round on Saturday.

SCORES (RSA unless otherwise specified):

132 - Jacques Kruyswijk 67 65
133 - Neil Schietekat 65 68
134 - Michael Hollick 64 70, Doug McGuigan 65 69
135 - Vaughn Groenewald 66 69, Ulrich van den Berg 68 67, James Kamte 68 67, Danie van Tonder 69 66, Ryan Cairns (ZIM) 70 65, Riekus Nortje 70 65, Jaco Ahlers 65 70, Louis de Jager 67 68, Jean Hugo 66 69, Teboho Sefatsa 69 66
137 - Titch Moore 67 70, Tyrone Ferreira 66 71, Dean O'Riley 73 64, Andrew Curlewis 69 68, Bradford Vaughan 69 68
138 - Morne Buys 67 71, Wallie Coetsee 67 71, Attie Schwartzel 69 69, Bryce Easton 63 75, PH McIntyre 71 67
139 - Charl Coetzee 69 70, Theunis Spangenberg 72 67, Dean Burmester 68 71, Ockie Strydom 70 69, Heinrich Bruiners 70 69, Mark Murless 69 70
140 - Beyers Smith 72 68, Divan van den Heever 68 72, Allan Versfeld 69 71
141 - Christiaan Basson 70 71, Mark Williams 74 67, Toto Thimba (Jnr) 74 67, Ruan Huysamen (NAM) 68 73, Johan Bekker 71 70
142 - Grant Muller 69 73, Jacques Blaauw 70 72, JJ Senekal 69 73, Warren Abery 70 72
 
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