Morten Orum Madsen of Denmark finished with a hole-in-one and an eagle for a seven-under 63 to share the lead after the first round of the Tshwane Open on Thursday.
Madsen was joined by David Horsey of England, who was bogey-free with seven birdies around the par-70 Pretoria Country Club course.
They were a shot ahead of Wallie Coetsee and Brett Rumford at the last event of a three-tournament swing for the European Tour in South Africa.
Madsen, whose only win on the European Tour came in South Africa in 2013, had four birdies and a bogey before his remarkable finish.
He spun his tee shot back into the hole on the eighth, his 17th, for his ace. He then eagled the par-five ninth after reaching the green in two with a pinpoint long iron.
CELEBRATIONS
“That was fantastic,” Madsen said. “For the last couple of weeks I’ve been hitting some shots that were really close and I said to my caddie that a hole-in-one was on the cards pretty soon.”
At first, Madsen did not realize he had holed the tee shot on the short hole. He then threw up his arms and said: “It’s in, it’s in,” before high-fiving his playing partners.
LATE CHARGE
Horsey made a late charge to match Madsen’s 63, picking up four birdies in his final seven holes.
South Africa’s Coetsee and Australia’s Rumford shared third.
Former Ryder Cup winner Edoardo Molinari was also competing in the South African capital and opened with a 66 for a tie for ninth place.
European Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke carded a 71.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier