Simon Wakefield completed an impressive English double on the international golf stage when he followed Nick Dougherty into the winners’’ enclosure by capturing the Dimension Data Pro-Am at Sun City, South Africa.
Wakefield, who claimed the second card at The European Tour Qualifying School last November to regain his place on The European Tour, fired a final round 69, three under par, for a nine under par total of 279 and a five stroke winning margin over South African Nic Henning.
Having earned his place in the field through Monday’’s pre-qualifying, Wakefield becomes the first qualifier to win in the ten year history of the event.
Henning paid the price for a poor start to his round and could do no better than a 71 to finish alone in second. Tjaart van der Walt closed with a turbulent 71 that featured only seven pars to finish at two under, which made him the third of only four players to complete 72 holes in red figures. The other was 21 year old Louis Oosthuizen, who birdied the last to finish the tournament on one under par after a closing two over par 74.
Wakefield might have known it was his day as early as the first hole, when a female spectator, a photographer and a rules official conspired to hand him a stroke of luck. Wakefield’’s second shot struck the spectator on the shoulder on its way into the trees, the photographer rode over his ball with his golf cart and the rules official granted him a free drop. From an improved lie he went up and down for a birdie four.
While on the surface it seemed he had escaped scot-free, Wakefield did pay a price for his errant shot.
“I played with Jarrod Moseley at Woburn last year and saw how he was messed up by hitting someone on the head, so it was still with me on the next hole where I made double bogey.”
As a peace offering to the tearful woman, Wakefield signed the word “sorry” on his ball and gave it to her when he walked off the second green.
‘When those things start to happen, you just know it’’s your day,” said Wakefield. “But I drove it well today and knew that if I hit it straight and found the greens, Nic would have to make birdies.”
