South Africa Open ends: Lyle earns highest prize money of his career - Golf News
Lyle Rowe carded an 18 under 274 tournament score in the Africa Open at the East London Golf Club and received the highest prize money of his career, after confirming his tie for the eighth position on the leaderboard.
Rowe, the 24-year-old South African golf player, entered the final round with 13 under overall score. He started his final round in style, with six consecutive birdies on the first six holes he played.
However, he bogeyed the par-4 9th and 14th holes. On the par-5 15th hole, he again managed a birdie, followed by pars on the remaining to share the eighth position with Lee Craig. He scored a total of seven birdies and two
bogeys in his final round.
“Six birdies in a row, it always helps. I got off to a nice start and carried on through the round,” said Rowe on Monday.
“I've played there every other event that they've held at East London as an amateur. I caddied in the SA Amateur, so going six or seven times around the course helped a lot,” he continued.
The Africa Open is co-sanctioned by Sunshine Tour and European Tour. Therefore, it grants exemptions to local players who are not eligible to play on the European Tour’s big money tournaments.
Following Rowe’s 42nd position in the Sunshine Tour’s Order of Merit, he was given an exemption to play in the Africa Open. Moreover, it was his first ever appearance in the tournament.
With his 8th position in the tournament, he has now moved into the top 50 in the Sunshine Tour’s Order of Merit.
As a result, he has received exemption to play in the co-sanctioned events scheduled in the month of January, 2012.
His previous best on any of the co-sanctioned event came in the South Africa Open in 2011, when he shared the 13th position on the leaderboard.
In 2011, Rowe spent most of the time playing on Sunshine secondary tour. However, he plans to play full time on the Sunshine Tour to earn a full time European Tour card for 2013.
"Hopefully it will be more of the same for me. It's a different league [playing in co-sanctioned events] but it comes with its own challenges and I just hope the results come," he said.
“I just need to keep building on the start, and finish well up on the [Sunshine tour] order of merit".
Rowe has made a good start in the 2012 season and is likely to move on with his good performance to enter the European Tour next year. He only needs to record some wins on the Sunshine Tour to achieve his goals.
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