DP World Tour : Investec South African Open Leaderboard
Darren Fichardt made two birdies as play resumed this morning at the weather-affected Investec South African Open Championship to open up a two-shot lead after round one at the soggy Durban Country Club.
The first round on Thursday was delayed by three hours after heavy rain on Tuesday night led to areas of the course being submerged.
A mammoth effort from greenkeeping staff saw play get under way at 09:20 local time but Fichardt still had four holes to complete when the hooter sounded to end play due to darkness.
At that point he was in a share of the lead with England's Sam Bairstow and Swede Fredrik From, both of whom had completed their rounds of -7 65, but when he got back on the course at 08.00 he birdied the 16th and last to jump out into a two-shot lead at -9
Branden Grace, Keith Horne and Marcel Siem all made moves up the leaderboard in completing their rounds to join Bairstow and From at -7, one clear of Todd Clements, Haotong Li, Shaun Norris, John Parry, Jayden Schaper, Shubhankar Sharma and Richie Ramsay all -6.
The last of Fichardt's five DP World Tour wins came at this event in 2017 but since then he has twice had to come through the Qualifying School, although a runner-up finish here and top 100 placing on the Race to Dubai Rankings last season showed he can still mix it with the young guns as he approaches his 50th birthday.
There is more unsettled weather in the forecast, especially for Sunday.
edit**** Canada's Aaron Cockerill made four birdies in 5 holes to begin his round then settled in with pars, just 1 bogey for -3 69 and with round 2 now underway that is where the cut is projected to fall.
europeantour.com
Bryan Angus (edit)
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