Three-way tie at top of leaderboard

Pretoria Country Club lived up to its reputation as a thinking man’s course yesterday and three golfers – Frenchman Gregory Havret, South Africa’s Haydn Porteous (above) and rookie Swede Alexander Bjork – passed the examination with flying colours as they held the lead after shooting six-under-par 65s in the opening round of the Tshwane Open.

Bjork, a Challenge Tour graduate, started on the 10th and had four of his six birdies on the back nine, before collecting two more coming in, completing an impressive bogey-free round on the ninth.

“It’s a narrow course with really high rough, so it’s important to be straight off the tee and also think where you want to put the tee shot to attack the pin. I like it. You need to think a bit off the tee.

“I played good today. I was solid off the tee, hitting straight and also hitting some good irons and some putts,” Bjork said.

Young Porteous was also the epitome of precision, his 65 also being bogey-free and, having found his swing “in a dark place”, the 22-year-old said hitting fairways was where his advantage came from.

“To be bogey-free around this course is a fair effort and I think I missed a total of two or three fairways all day. I gave myself 15 to 16 good chances of making a birdie. But I was in a dark place with my golf and I couldn’t be happier with where my golf is starting to go,” Porteous said.

It’s impossible to predict where the leading trio’s challengers will come from, with 29 other golfers within three shots, including George Coetzee, Dean Burmester and SA Open champions Graeme Storm and Hennie Otto, who all shot 68s.