He’s not in the lead, and the second round is not complete in the Big Easy IGT Challenge Tour’s Race to Q-School #3 at Randpark Bushwillow, but Slade Pickering laid down a marker on Tuesday with a stunning 10-under-par 62.
Having started the tournament with a level-par 72, Pickering got his moving day done before the weather caused the second round to be suspended with nine players still to complete their rounds. That will be done in the morning ahead of the third and final round, but Pickering will sleep in a share of second place with one of the first-round leaders, Gregory Mckay on 10-under-par thorugh 36 holes.
The other player who shared the lead after the first round is Ruan Groenewald, and he has two holes to complete for his second round, and is currently five-under-par, which takes him to 12-under and a two-stroke edge over his nearest pursuers.
Extraordinarily, Pickering’s round included a bogey on the par-three 15th. Except for that lapse, his was a superb round. He made six birdies on his opening nine, on one, three, six, seven, eight and nine. After those four birdies in a row ahead of the turn, he made it five with another on the 10th. Then he picked up three more in a row on 12, 13 and 14. He dropped that shot on 15, and made amends for that with a final birdie on 17.
Mckay also had just one bogey on his second-round card, on the par-five third. And Groenewald had one bogey too. His came on the second, and the rest of his scorecard was blemish-free.
Nicholaus Frade carded a four-under 68 in the second round to take up fourth place on nine-under, while Herman Loubser, Kyle McClatchie, Luan Boshoff and amateurs Keegan Mclachlan and LB Boshoff made up the group in a share of fifth on eight-under.
