He thought his luck was going to be good when his 30-footer for birdie on the first took a little bounce and went in the hole, and TC Charamba was right as he led the Suncoast Classic by two shots on seven-under 65 after the first round.

He led by two shots from Chris Swanepoel and Hendrik Buhrmann on the par-72 6,157-metre Durban Country Club.

Swanepoel overcame bogeys on the third and on the 12th, while Buhrmann slipped up just once with a bogey on the 11th.

Charamba dropped just a single shot in his round, when he made bogey on the 11th: “I just missed the fairway on the left and I was trying to punch a four iron to the front edge of the green and I blocked it right behind the trees,” he explained. “I chipped back on to the green and two-putted.”

But that was as far as the bad play went for the Zimbabwean who had a maiden win on the Sunshine Tour in 2006 in the SAA Invitational Pro-Am, and followed it up with victory in the MTC Namibia PGA Championship last year.

He reeled off four birdies on the trot from three to six, and, after his drop on 11, he made three more birdies on his way home, including the 18th which came from a sublime chip from left of the green which left him a foot for birdie.

He did feel, however, that there was more in him: “I hit the ball nicely and I putted very well, but I had a few missed shots on the par fives – eight and 10 – where I was hitting five-iron into the green and I didn’t make birdies from the middle of the green,” he said.

Behind Charamba and the pair in second, early leaders Teboho Sefatsa and Louis de Jager were joined on four-under 68 by Dion Fourie and Grant Veenstra, neither of whom dropped a shot on a benign day which had had rain forecast which never materialised.

There was another group of four on three-under 69, led by Morne Uys, last year’s runner-up Omar Sandys, Titch Moore and Tyrone Mordt.

The pair of two-time winners this year in the field each shot one-over: Jaco van Zyl had to had to endure a double-bogey six on the sixth, and two more bogeys, but an eagle three on 14 eased the pain and the damage.

Brandon Pieters, who won the last two Vodacom Business Origins of Golf titles, had to wait until the eighth for his first birdie, but he dropped four shots on the homeward nine, and only regular birdies saved him.

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