The honour of being crowned the leading amateur at the 99th South African Open Championship will be a battle between Dylan Frittelli, JG Claassen and Ryan Dreyer.
All three survived the halfway cut and will contest the Freddie Tait Cup at Pearl Valley Golf Estates this weekend.
On cut day on Friday, Claassen emerged as the top amateur performer in the field.
The 18-year-old from Orkney Golf Club in the North West Province, a 10-time tournament winner this year including the African and Zimbabwe Amateur Stroke Play Championships, fired a three-under-par 69.
His total score of one-under-par 145 was matched by University of Texas freshman Fritelli. The number one ranked amateur in South African in 2008 struggled to a 74 after a solid 69 in the opening round.
Glacier SA Amateur champion Dreyer played in the afternoon field, and scraped through right on the cut line of one-over-par 145. The 37-year-old Killarney Golf Club member and former professional player carded rounds of 73 and 72 to extend his stay to the weekend.
Adrian Ford and Leon Knoll, the remaining amateurs in the starting line-up, missed the cut on 153 and 159 respectively.
Spanish professional Pablo Martin leads the field on 11-under-par 133, two shots clear of Sunshine Tour Order of Merit leader Anders Hansen of Denmark and three ahead of South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen and fellow Spaniard Alejandro Canizares.
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Serengeti Golf and Wildlife Estate will host the South African Open Championship in 2011 and 2012. The Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course at Serengeti is the first 27-hole golf course in Gauteng and was recently named “Best New Golf Course” by Golf Digest.
The 18-hole course called Masai Mara, which means “wide open plains” in the language of the Masai, has a rugged grassland and dune-scape look. One of the unique features on the course is the par-five eighth hole with its island green. The nine-hole course called Whistling Thorn has a more classic feel.
The courses were constructed in accordance with USGA specifications, with cool season grass that provides green vistas all year round. Designed as a strategic and technical masterpiece that will test today’s best players, the sunken design of the course with its wide corridors is ideal for tournament purposes and provides optimal spectator value on almost every hole.
