Sunshine Tour; Jake Redman High fives at the Nashua Masters
Rookie Jake Redman levelled his best round scores on the Sunshine Tour when he carded a seven-under-par 63 on Friday in the second round of the Nashua Masters, which was carrying a purse of 1.2million rand.
The South African started the opening round with a negligible score of one-under 69, but by the end of the second, his name was seen at fifth place on the leader board. Redman fired a round of eight-under-par, to take that spot,
which was only three strokes behind the leaders, Alan Michell and Branden Grace.
Initially the player was the centre of limelight for producing a magnificent round, but as David Hewan, charged from behind and stormed a spotless round of nine-under-par 61, Redman was pushed further behind. Hewan took the charge
of the third place and stepped into the third round with a margin of two shots behind the lead.
Redman stepped out of the clubhouse and teed off from the back nine. The player drove the first shot to the green and sand wedged the second shot right into the pin to draft an eagle at the 10th. He chased it with a
birdie at the 12th and a second eagle at the 16th to push the score as low to five-under-30. On his way to the front nine, Redman picked up three more birdies, but missed two shots and marked his scorecard with twin bogeys. The blemishes eradicated
the effort made by the eagle-birdie partnership and bought the player to fifth place.
The player was happy with his effort, but despised the loss of two shots. Speaking to the press he said, "It was a bit unfortunate, that ending with the last three holes, but I hit good shots. I just got a bit unlucky. I'm pretty
happy, though.”
Redman shared the tough situation of rain and wet greens with Hewan, as both the players carried their spark in damp conditions. Hewan commented on the weather conditions and said that the rain gave him a tough time. He added that
his putter remained on his side or else he would have faltered on the way.
He exclaimed, "It was quite hard coming back at the end in the rain. I had two chip-ins on par-threes. If you make three twos on the front nine, it's always going to look pretty good on the card. The back nine, I made two on 11,
and then parred 13 and made three out of four coming home. The mind's telling you when you get to seven-under, 'Just hold it there,' but if the putter's working, the putter's working.”
Hewan shared the spot with Jacques Blaauw, who surged from below helped by a birdie at the 18th. Like Hewan, the players had some hard reservations for the rain that made the challenge even tougher. Speaking to the press,
Blaauw said that despite the hurdles created by the rain, he was satisfied with the score, which he made to make the cut.
Deadliest of all of the players, Jean Hugo, who has claimed a victory thrice on the Sunshine Tour this season, silently, went about drafting a bogey-free round of 66 to surge into seven-under at midway, four off the pace.
The second round of the Nashua Masters, which takes place every year in November, stepped into the third round with Jake Redman and Garry Hill in fifth place. The lead was taken by Alan Michell and Brandon Grace, who fired a score
of 11-under to take the place as a midway leader.
According to the experts, Redman is a very talented player and it is shown from his consistency, which he gave during the second round. However, the player needs to focus on his long game as that is his only weakness.
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