Kyle McClatchie continued his recent good form on Monday as he opened the Big Easy IGT Challenge Tour’s Chase to the Sunshine Tour #29 at ERPM Golf Club with a bogey-free six-under-par 66.

The 24-year-old former number one South African amateur won on the Bushveld Tour last week, and he rode that momentum from the very first hole at ERPM as he made birdie there. He followed it up with another on the second and then kept things error-free throughout the rest of the round with four more birdies on six, 11, 13 and 17.

“I’ve been putting really well lately,” he said, “and that has freed the rest of my game up. To be honest, the rest of my game has been good for a while, so it’s good to putt well and I’m just taking the opportunity to get as many good scores as I can.”

He was drawn with top amateurs Casey Jarvis and Christiaan Burke in the first round, and they played their part in some good scoring from that three-ball. Jarvis finished the day in a share of second with pro Jason Froneman on five-under-par, and Burke, who pulled off a couple of Bushveld Tour titles of his own during the mid-winter break of the Big Easy IGT Challenge Tour, was in a share of fifth with Ryan van Velzen and Dean O’Riley.

The last tournament on the Big Easy IGT Challenge Tour circuit was the Team Championship at the end of June, and the last individual tournament took place at State Mines a couple of weeks earlier.

McClatchie has been using the break constructively, and he, for one, has taken the opportunities presented by the disruption the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought to work on his game. “I’ve actually found the downtime quite useful,” he said. “It’s given me time to find the things I need to become the golfer I was – or that I know I am, rather.”

There are seven more tournaments in the Chase to the Sunshine Tour series ahead of the final at Centurion on December 13, after which the top three players will earn cards to play on the Sunshine Tour.