Scrolling down a list of players for the world golf rankings is a long search until the name Dawie van der Walt appears. You have to go into the 600s.
However, a glance of the leaderboard following Friday’s second round of the 2020 Vivint Houston Open and the Kingwood golfer comes up quickly.
Over two days at Memorial Park Golf Course, van der Walt’s 4 under is good for a share of fourth place and only three shots behind leader Sam Burns. He’ll be playing on the weekend. The same can’t be said of Phil Mickelson, Jordan Spieth, Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson. They all failed to make the 36-hole cut.
“I don’t expect to win, but I’m glad to make the weekend and maybe I can finish top 20 or so,” said van der Walt, who is playing the event on a sponsor exemption. “Adds a bit of pressure when you get an invite and you’re local. You’ve got a couple of people, friends and stuff following you, so you want to play well.”
Van der Walt may be selling himself short in settling for a top-20 finish. Especially the way he’s playing. On Friday, van der Walt shot a 4-under 66 to follow his opening-round even-par 70. Friday’s scorecard included six birdies, four on the front nine.
At 4-under 136, van der Walt is at a place on the leaderboard where he’s worth monitoring over the next two days.
Born in South Africa, van der Walt has called the Houston area home for a while. He played college golf at Lamar before embarking on a professional career in 2007.
Success on the golf course has been hard to attain for van der Walt, who is looking for a breakout win on the PGA Tour. The 6-4, 37-year-old van der Walt has won twice each on the European, Sunshine and Korn Ferry tours. His best finish on Web.com tour was second at the 2012 Cox Classic.
Living locally doesn’t mean van der Walt has vast experience playing Memorial Park before this weekend’s PGA Tour event. He said he played it right after the reopening. He lives 45 minutes from the city-owned course that accounts for 60,000-plus rounds a year.
“It’s $40 to play the golf course, there’s always a lot of people out here, there’s a lot of traffic,” van der Walt said. “I was thinking about coming down and playing it when I found out I was in, but the golf course was closed, so I didn't really get a whole lot of opportunity to play it.
“I just played it Monday (during a practice round). It's not like a local, like I know the golf course, local knowledge. When I’m home I play around my house, I don’t drive very far. I like the golf course, maybe I’ll come play it more.”
The course played to van der Walt’s liking on Friday morning. Teeing off the first tee at 8:25 with playing partners Kyle Hogan of Cypress and Isaiah Salinda, van der Walt birdied holes 2-4. He made the turn at 32 to position himself on the leaderboard.
On Friday, van der Walt kept the ball in play — a prerequisite for scoring low at Memorial Park — hitting 13 of 18 greens in regulation.
“There’s a lot of shots if you don’t hit it in the fairway, you’re trying to run it up on the green because the greens are firm and fast,” van der Walt said. “It’s a really good test and it’s a grind.
“You can see the scores are not very …there’s a couple of birdies out there, but (Thursday) I hit a good shot and made double bogey on a par 3 that you can almost throw the ball on the green. You’ve got to have a good short game out here.”
Over the past two days, van der Walt has not only displayed a stellar short game, he’s keeping mistakes to a minimum aside from the double-bogey 5 on the 15th hole on Thursday.
For the record, van der Walt is ranked No. 601 in the world, sandwiched between Martin Trainer and Allen John.
"local" - Google News
November 07, 2020 at 07:31AM
https://ift.tt/32l5Uma
Dawie van der Walt playing like a local at Memorial Park - Houston Chronicle
"local" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2WoMCc3
https://ift.tt/2KVQLik
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Dawie van der Walt playing like a local at Memorial Park - Houston Chronicle"
Post a Comment