Rain is a blessing in Africa, and “Africa’s Major” was certainly looking for a blessed celebration of its 40th anniversary. But the second round of the Nedbank Golf Challenge had to be suspended on Friday because of lightning and a waterlogged golf course.
Play was first suspended at 11:49 because of a thunderstorm, and it wasn’t able to resume as the Gary Player Country Club was soaked by consistent rain throughout the afternoon.
Related: Ryan Fox exorcises ghosts at Gary Player CC with a 64
The second round will resume at 7:45am on Saturday, with the third round to follow after its completion.
New Zealander Ryan Fox and England’s Luke Donald are currently tied for the lead on eight under par through three holes of their second rounds. They are two strokes clear Ross Fisher, Rasmus Højgaard and Guido Migliozzi who also have yet to complete their second rounds. Richard Sterne is currently the leading South African on three under par through 11 holes.
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David Williams, the Tournament Director for the DP World Tour, said they have every intention of completing four rounds but are clearly under pressure from the weather.
“We’ll restart at 7:45am everywhere on the golf course and they’ll finish their rounds and then go straight into the third round. In that way we’re probably going to save at least two hours, and with the forecast on Saturday not looking good we need to grab every means to get as much play complete.
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“Hopefully if everything goes right we might get the third round done on Saturday. A lot of it is up in the air and we’ll have to see what the weather throws at us. If we get through the third round we’d certainly want to complete four rounds. The forecast is not good for the weekend so we’ll be watching it all closely and trying to make any plans we can to keep this tournament the great success that it always is.”
