Staff WriterThe CIRCA Cape Town Open leaderboard on Thursday had all the orderly charm of the Table Mountain cable car line at peak holiday season: lots of hopefuls, plenty of movement, and absolutely nobody prepared to step aside.
Seven players signed for matching seven-under-par 65s at Royal Cape Golf Club to share the first-round lead — South Africa’s Louis Albertse joined by England’s Tom Lewis, Will Enefer and Sam Hutsby, Ireland’s Gary Hurley, Norway’s Baard Skogen, and Scotland’s Marc Warren.
They’re only a shot clear of a nine-man chasing pack, and that group has its own headline act in Wilco Nienaber, who recorded just the second albatross of his career at the par-five 16th on the way to a 66. If you’re looking for proof that Royal Cape can hand out gifts as well as punishments, an albatross will do nicely.
But what makes this early logjam properly intriguing is the backstory baked into the scorecards.
Albertse is the lone South African among the leaders — and he’s no stranger to this tournament’s closing act, having finished third here in 2024. Enefer, meanwhile, is leading on a course where he caddied in 2024 for his Ladies European Tour girlfriend Ana Dawson during a Sunshine Ladies Tour event.
Hurley is playing like a man who’s borrowed time and decided to spend it wisely, having feared last September he might never compete again because of a shoulder condition. And Lewis, as ever, carries a little bit of history in his golf bag — the same player who turned heads in 2011 when he shared the first-round lead at The Open as an amateur.
Albertse admitted his round began with modest ambitions and ended with a flourish, particularly late on the card.
“To start the week like this is pleasing,” said Albertse. “My expectations were low going into the round and I just wanted a solid start. I got the front nine going, made a bogey on 10 which was disappointing, but then played really nicely coming in,” he said of his five birdies in six holes on the back nine.
Hurley’s 65 carried even more emotional weight, arriving after a year of uncertainty and a diagnosis that made “will I play again?” a real question rather than a dramatic flourish.
“About three weeks ago I actually wasn’t going to come out here. About a year ago I woke up one day and couldn’t lift up my arm and didn’t know what it was. I went to see a specialist and she said I had Parsonage-Turner Syndrome, which in my case affected a spinal nerve that controls everything with how you move your shoulder. It took so long to recover and last September I was starting to look at doing other things outside of golf. Then I started working with my coach to find a way to load my shoulder differently in the swing. It doesn’t seem to cause me pain anymore. I’m delighted,” he said.
And Lewis? He did the oldest trick in the good-scoring book: keep the card clean, keep the pulse steady, and let everyone else do the panicking.
“It was a nice round. Bogey-free always shows you’re hitting it well. I miss being out on the main tour. Last year I didn’t want to play and this year I do want to play, so I’m really looking forward to the next few days,” he said.
So yes, the CIRCA Cape Town Open has a seven-way tie at the summit after day one — but it doesn’t feel like a stale numbers exercise. It feels like the start of one of those weeks where the course gives you birdies with one hand, snatches them back with the other, and leaves the plot twists to the players.
