Charl Schwartzel carded a 4-under-par 68 Thursday and is locked in a five-way tie for the lead of the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek Country Club.
A winner in this event two years ago, Schwartzel is coming off a fifth-place finish at Sun City on Sunday, where he showed a hungry pair of heels to some of the world's finest golfers. He carried that momentum into Thursday's opening round and is tied with Italy's Alessandro Tadini, England's Phillip Archer and Oliver Wilson and South Africa's Wayne de Haas.
The leading quintet is only one shot clear of another seven players, all relatively unknown besides Scot Andrew Coltart, a former Ryder Cup player and brother-in-law of current star Lee Westwood.
Ironically, Westwood had an unhappy opening day, posting a 1-over 73 that had him one shot behind tournament favorite Ernie Els, who carded an unimpressive par 72
After storming to four birdies and two pars on the first six holes, Schwartzel picked up only one birdie along the back nine.
"I didn't make birdies on the par-fives," he said. "But other than that, I played well. I won't say that I was too conservative on the par-fives. On 13, I could have gone for it but then the wind was blustery, so if you drove it up with a 3-wood, you could quite easily go right over the green."
Coltart thought the oppressive afternoon heat might make it tougher for the later starters.
"I had a laugh thinking about those guys going out there into the heat this afternoon," said Coltart, who finished before lunch.
However, Schwartzel, showed no signs of fatigue.
"It's never bad to be tied for the lead," he said. "It was really warm, but it wasn't unbearable.
Meanwhile, Tadini, 1994 Italian Amateur Champion, relied heavily on his short game to set the early clubhouse lead at 4-under.
"My putting was really good today," he said. "My iron play could have been better and off the tee I could have done more. But I was really happy with my putting."
Wilson, also playing in his second Alfred Dunhill, got off to a great start with two consecutive birdies but had to hold his nerve as exhaustion set in on his back nine.
The Englishman was set for a top-20 finish in 2004 with earlier rounds of 69, 73 and 76, but the wheels came off in the final round when he holed a 10 on No. 18, which dropped him from 25th to 68th place.
"Today I had visions of it all going wrong on the 18th, again." Wilson said. "I really felt tired on 12 and 13, and I battled to get my focus back."
68 Wayne De Haas (Rsa), Charl Schwartzel (Rsa), Oliver Wilson, Alessandro Tadini (Ita), Phillip Archer
69 Sam Walker, Simon Nash (USA), Andrew Coltart, Rafael Bello (Spa), David Higgins, Alan Michell (Rsa), Steve Van Vuuren (Rsa)
70 Brandon Pieters (Rsa), Ian Hutchings (Rsa), Benn Barham, Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa), Pelle Edberg (Swe), Johan Axgren (Swe), Andrew McLardy (Rsa), Mark Pilkington, Robert Rock, Desmond Terblanche (Rsa)
71 Hennie Otto (Rsa), Liam Bond, Scott Drummond, Andrew Raitt, Andre Cruse (Rsa), Oliver Fisher, Gary Lockerbie, Grant Muller (Rsa), Hendrik Buhrmann (Rsa), Werner Geyer (Rsa), Tom Whitehouse, Blanche Lamprecht (Rsa), James Kamte (Rsa), Trevor Fisher Jnr (Rsa), Vaughn Groenewald (Rsa)
72 David Carter, Gerlou Roux (Rsa), Andrew Butterfield, Patrik Sjoland (Swe), Adilson Da Silva (Bra), Euan Little, Rafael Echenique (Arg), Mads Vibe-Hastrup (Den), Lee Slattery, Eirik Tage Johansen (Nor), Ernie Els (Rsa), Ulrich Van Den Berg (Rsa), Darren Fichardt (Rsa), Lee S James, Nico Van Rensburg (Rsa), Keith Horne (Rsa), Michael Kirk (USA)
73 Neil Cheetham, Gareth Davies, Ross Fisher, Jaco Van Zyl (Rsa), Kevin Stone (Rsa), Julien Clement (Swi), Tyrone Van Aswegen (Rsa), Malcolm MacKenzie, Gregory Havret (Fra), Edward Rush, Joakim Backstrom (Swe), Jesus Maria Arruti (Spa), Mattias Eliasson (Swe), Jean Hugo (Rsa), Bobby Lincoln (Rsa), Michiel Bothma (Rsa), Carl Suneson (Spa), David Drysdale, Jonathan Lomas, Michael Lamb (Zim), Lee Westwood
74 Jean-Baptiste Gonnet (Fra), Andrew Tampion (Aus), Fredrik Andersson Hed (Swe), Bradford Vaughan (Rsa), Alvaro Quiros (Spa), Marc Cayeux (Zim), Alexandre Rocha (Bra), James Heath, Wallie Coetsee (Rsa), Chris Williams (Rsa), Gregory Bourdy (Fra), Mark Murless (Rsa), Sam Little, Sean Farrell (Zim)
75 Juan Parron (Spa), Henk Alberts (Rsa), Henrik Nystrom (Swe), Kalle Brink (Swe), Rossouw Loubser (Rsa), Carlos Rodiles (Spa), Ross Wellington (Rsa), Dion Fourie (Rsa), Peter Karmis (Rsa), Warren Bennett, Michael Green (Rsa), Ryan Tipping (Rsa), Lindani Ndwandwe (Rsa), Martin Maritz (Rsa), Edoardo Molinari (Ita)
76 James Kingston (Rsa), Shaun Norris (Rsa), Sion Bebb, Nick Lawrence (Rsa), Jose-Filipe Lima (Por), Alexander Noren (Swe), Sven Struver (Ger), Warren Abery (Rsa), John Bele (Rsa), Titch Moore (Rsa), Alex Haindl (Rsa), Garry Houston, Steve Basson (Rsa), Brett Liddle (Rsa), Callie Swart (Rsa), Adrien Mork (Fra), Jean-Francois Lucquin (Fra)
77 Sammy Daniels (Rsa), Desvonde Botes (Rsa), Martin Erlandsson (Swe), Francois Delamontagne (Fra), Richard McEvoy, Birgir Hafthorsson (Is), Grant Veenstra (Rsa), Omar Sandys (Rsa), David Frost (Rsa), Alan McLean, Phil Worthington, Wayne Westner (Rsa)
78 Daniel Vancsik (Arg), Anton Haig (Rsa), Julien Foret (Por), Richard Finch, Francois Calmels (Fra), Warrick Druian (Rsa), Manuel Quiros (Spa)
79 Thomas Aiken (Rsa), Doron Mommsen (Rsa), Thabang Simon (Rsa), Matthew Richardson, Chris Swanepoel (Rsa), Ryan Reid (Rsa), Justin Walters (Rsa)
80 Jeff Inglis (Rsa), Billy Valentyn (Rsa), Steven Jeppesen (Swe)
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