Scottish Calum Hill won the Joburg Open with 266 (69 66 69 62, -14) shots, a DP World Tour event organized in collaboration with the Sunshine Tour and played on the Houghton Golf Club course (par 70), in Johannesburg, South Africa. The 30-year-old from Kirkcaldy finished the tournament tied with South Africans Jacques Kruyswijk (266 – 65 67 68 66) and Shaun Norris (266 – 66 63 67 70), both with a title this season, and then overtook them with a par on the second playoff hole.
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Only one Italian player was on the field, Francesco Laporta, who made a good recovery in the final to finish in 19th place with 275 (67 68 73 65, -7).
Two other South Africans followed in the rankings and three protagonists, Dylan Frittelli, fourth with 267 (-13), out of the playoff by one shot, and Daniel Van Tonder, fifth with 268 (-12). In sixth position with 269 (-11) the Zimbabwean Kieran Vincent, who had experience on the LIV Golf, and in seventh with 270 (-10) the Danish Jacob Skov Olesen and the English Brandon Robinson Thompson.
Calum Hill, the first Scot to win in the 17 editions of the competition, signed the second title on the tour after three and a half years (the previous one in August 2021 in the Cazoo Classic), but his palmarès also includes three victories on the Challenge Tour (now HotelPlanner Tour). With a 62 (-8, ten birdies, two bogeys), the best partial of the day, he made up 14 positions. He remained the clubhouse leader for a long time, then he was joined by Kruyswijk with a birdie on the 17th hole and by Norris, who was in the lead in the two middle rounds, with two birdies in the last three. The trio closed the first extra hole in par, then Norris slipped by putting the ball in the water with the second shot, after having passed through a bunker (double bogey), and Kruyswijk missed the putt for par by about a meter and to extend the play-off. Hill received a cheque for 177,233 euros on a prize pool of about 1,050,000 euros (20,500,000 rand the official figure).
Laporta started in 26th place, rose to 20th in the second round, then slipped to 40th in the third to then move to 19th with a nice round of 65 (-5), the result of eight birdies and three bogeys. In his eighth appearance of the season and 157th on tour, he has achieved his fourth top-21 finish, including a sixth place (Nedbank Golf Challenge) and a 13th place (Bahrain Championship).
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