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The 2024 season of the DP World Tour officially begins with a double date, in fact it will be played both in Australia and in South Africa. The Joburg Open takes place in Johannesburg, the first of three consecutive weeks in the land of the Springboks in this appetizer of the new season of the top European circuit.
In front of everyone at the end of the first eighteen holes (with some flys that have to finish a couple of holes) one of the many hosts, Thriston Lawrence.
Thriston Lawrence, results
The South African golfer is in command of operations thanks to a round of -8 (62 strokes) which means a new course record.
The n.90 of the OWGR made the difference on the rest of the field, finding a perfect day in which he didn’t make a single mistake and making eight birdies, the last of which was on the tee of the 18th. For him there were even three shots of margin over his closest pursuer, his compatriot Nikhil Rama (-5) who started from 10th this morning and scored a good 65, shooting par for his first 9 holes while scoring five birdies and not even a bogey from the halfway point onwards .
On the par 70 course of the Houghton Golf Club in Johannesburg (South Africa), a very large group of ten players who share third position close out the top 10. In fact, at -4 we find the South Africans Jacques Kruyswijk, Zander Lombard, Jayden Schaper, Jaco Prinsloo and Darren Fichardt, the Englishmen Dan Bradbury and Andy Sulivan, the Scotsman Stephen Gallacher and the Swede Jesper Svensson.
Five Italians also came to South Africa to try to bag the first important points for the DP World Tour 2024 ranking. The four Italians who came up from the Challenge Tour plus Renato Paratore who got the card via the Q are in the field.
School. The two best Italians are Andrea Pavan and Paratore who closed their first eighteen holes in -1 (69 strokes) in tied 32nd place. Three birdies and two bogeys for Pavan while for the Roman there are 5 birdies and four bogeys.
Seventy strokes for Matteo Manassero who currently occupies 54th place. For the Veronese, an extremely solid day with few flashes but also few errors on his list, with shots gained on the 1st and 11th while lost on the 3rd and 5th.
He finishes his first 18 holes with a total of 71 (+1) Francesco Laporta. For the Apulian, who had played great up until the 12th round (-2), a bad double bogey arrived at the difficult par 4 of the 12th followed by the final bogey of the 18th.
Laporta occupies the 74th position on equal merit and is fully fighting to play on the weekend. The only one who shot really badly for our colors is Lorenzo Scalise, who started from the tenth with four bogeys in the first five holes and arrived on the tee of the 5th (his fourteenth hole) even at +7.
For Scalise three birdies in the last five holes which provide some faint hope of making the cut despite the +4 overall and the temporary 119th place.
