One of amateur golf's most sought-after trophies was won by a young South African going places

It has been a meteoric rise for a 20-year-old who only started playing golf seriously in 2023. Asked by a friend to play the Gauteng North Championship, he shot a round of 64 at Centurion and the seed was planted.

A week later he entered Nomads' Under-19 Championship at Pecanwood – and finished fifth. He then took up a collegiate invite at East Tennessee State University before he returned to South Africa.

'A lot of people thought I made the wrong decision ... it put pressure on me,' he told The Golf Mag last year. '(But), the environment here with my coach, practising with my friends, being comfortable and happy ... in America I never had that.'

Back home it was as though he'd never left. This time he won the Nomads SA Boys Under-19 Championship, before he led South Africa to victory at the All-Africa Junior Team Championship.

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In 2025 he was crowned Gauteng North Open champion and was part of the South African team that won the GolfRSA International Amateur Championship. The SA Amateur Championship at Humewood was next, which opened the door to the Investec SA Open. He missed the cut, but that only served to make him hungrier.

A year later he was back at the Investec SA Open, again proudly wearing his GolfRSA cap, which he never took off until he had left the parking lot of Stellenbosch Golf Club. 'All that GolfRSA does for us helps so much,' he said. 'The tours, the camps, everything. It's unreal. It really improves us as players, and I think that's why I've obviously improved on my performance from last year.

'That birdie run was amazing. It feels like all my struggling of the first three days kind of just went away for the last four holes. I'll just say believe in yourself because, if you told me three years ago I'd even be playing in the SA Open, I probably wouldn't have believed you. Things can change very, very quickly.'

And golfing life, as he knows it, has changed forever.