They call it “moving day” and that proved to be the case on Saturday as both Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Erik van Rooyen surged into view at the 2024 Paris Olympics at Golf National.
Bezuidenhout fired a flawless birdie-filled round of seven-under-par 64 to leave him on a score of eight-under 205 heading into Sunday’ final round. Then Van Rooyen signed for another 69, to go with his opening 67 and 69, joining his fellow South African on that mark.
The tournament leaders in the race for men’s individual gold are the Spaniard Jon Rahm, a former world No 1 who crossed over to LIV Golf earlier this year and the form player of 2024 and defending Olympic champion Xander Schauffele.
Sunday promises some riveting action with six shots separating the top 16 on the leaderboard. And none of them are out of the gold medal contention. Certainly, all are in with a medals shout.
“It’s the type of golf course where you can score low,” said Van Rooyen. “There’s a stretch of holes where you make birdie and Nicolai Hojgaard shot 62 today to highlight that low scores are possible.”
It’s a stacked leaderboard heading into the final round at a Golf National course which has a lot of water and requires accuracy off the tee and good approach shots in to big greens.
Bezuidenhout made a rush of birdies at Nos four, five and six to turn in three-under 33 and he came home in a hurry, with four birdies, coming at the 10th, 14th, 15th and 18th holes. He also saved a shot on the 17th, after pulling his tee shot left into the rough before hitting a fine wedge shot and saving par.
Van Rooyen’s round was a little more dramatic in that he opened with a bogey, fought back with birdies at Nos three and four, before making double bogey at the 7th to go out in one-over 37. However, he also cashed in on the front nine, the more forgiving of the two loops and birdies at the 13th, 14th and 17th helped him dip under 70 for the third day in a row.
“It’s always nice to have a seven-under par round,” said Bezuidenhout. “Yesterday I had it going early but couldn’t finish off. In that second round I played well for 12 holes but hit two bad shots and that resulted in two double bogeys. It cost me four shots. That can easily happen on a course like thus, especially from holes 13 to 18. There’s a lot of water around the greens.”
The two South Africans could well have been drawn in the same threeball, both being eight-under, but Van Rooyen goes off at 11.44am with Byeong Un Hang and Corey Connors, while Bezuidenhout is in the group behind that at 11.55am. He is partnered by Thorbjorn Olesen and home favourite Victor Perez. That could well turn into the rowdiest gallery following of the day.
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