Player Blog: Darren Fichardt

In this week’s blog, defending Joburg Open champion Darren Fichardt looks back on a memorable 2017 season.

Last season ended in quite dramatic style, when I got into the Nedbank Golf Challenge at the last minute and ended up finishing tied sixth.

It’s a massive event on home soil, and one that we South Africans all want to play in. I was listed as second reserve, and last year I had been in the same position. Back then, I went to the golf course, I waited and waited and never got it. I left the course that day very depressed and I was anticipating the same thing happening again. I got the call Wednesday afternoon to say I was second reserve, and then another call shortly afterwards to inform me that I was now first reserve and asking that I be onsite - something that I wasn’t looking forward to after last year.

So, I drove down pretty late after dropping my kid off at camp and getting stuck in traffic. I was about 18km away and I phoned the Tournament Office to inform them of my imminent arrival. At this point I was about 10 minutes away. It was then, by coincidence while on the call, the news came through of another withdrawal, and I was in. The only issue - I was teeing off in 20 minutes.

I hadn’t played in two weeks so I didn’t know what to expect.I pretty much raced to the course and straight on to the first tee without touching a club or hitting a ball. I was playing really well going into it, the game was feeling good but after the drive I was feeling stiff. I remember I turned to my caddie and said to him I was stiff and when I’m stiff I hit a fade. So we played the first few holes Thursday aiming down the left. It went on to be a very worthwhile drive this year, as I finished tied sixth.

My 2017 season started poorly, but certainly picked up with the win in Joburg. The Middle East swing didn’t go as well as I wanted to. I came back, played in a local tournament then went off to the Joburg Open with no confidence with my putting - and won!

That week I changed both my putter and grip then putted great. With the rain delays throughout the week it was quite stop/start, but thankfully my putting held up on the final day. To win in South Africa is always special but to win that week was such a big surprise considering how I was playing and my confidence going into the tournament.

I had quite a big break in the middle part of the seasondue in part to some family issues. My mother in law fell ill and with her needing so much medical attention I decided not to play a full schedule. But I still went out, played half decent in China and then took part in GolfSixes, which was quite interesting.

Then I had six weeks in a row where I missed the cut, which was crazy. I was playing well but the putting went cold again, and I was missing by one or two shots every week.  I guess that's the small margins in golf but it came at an extremely frustrating time in the season.

I then made a caddie change, which helped me quite a bit. We started together in Switzerland where I finished 6th and then I came back to Europe again for the British Masters. I was going pretty well there, even though I made an eight on the par three, which didn’t help me much! But I still ended up finishing just outside the top 20, before I made the cut at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, which is an achievement in itself.

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The beauty of golf is you never know when the next win is coming. You keep going and grind it out just as Branden Grace did at Nedbank a few weeks ago. I’ve finished second a lot in my career. I’ve played consistently here in South Africa winning 15 times year after year but haven’t managed to peak at the right times in Europe. Admittedly, I’ve been on Tour a long time but it’s been a learning curve for me in adapting to the British climate, whether that be the Scottish, English or Irish events. But we’re moving forward.

Looking ahead to defending this week,it's great to see events on the European Tour in South Africa and we've got an exciting crop of up and coming guys starting to win. We’re a close group, playing practice rounds together, money games. Maybe in the past there was always a few that kept themselves to themselves which is fine but it’s pretty cool. I’d like more of us in the Top 50 in the world but I’m sure we’ll get there.

You can follow Darren onTwitter&Instagram.