Staff WriterHaydn Porteous has completed one of golf’s great resurrection acts, storming back to win the Vodacom Origins of Golf at Gowrie Farm Lodge & Golf Course – his first Sunshine Tour victory since 2016.
The event, hacked down to 36 holes thanks to weather that looked better suited for duck hunting, turned into a two-day dogfight. Porteous, playing on an invitation, strung together rounds of 66 and 69 to finish seven under par, a single stroke clear of the chasing pack.
For a man who once seemed destined for permanent residence in the game’s lost-and-found, this was redemption. Porteous last tasted Sunshine Tour champagne at the 2016 Investec Cup, before a run that included DP World Tour wins at the Joburg Open (2016) and the D+D Real Czech Masters (2017). Since then? Silence. Until now.
“I was desperate to reclaim the form that I know I still have,” Porteous admitted afterwards, tears flowing freely on the 18th green. This wasn’t just another tournament win – it was the end of a nine-year exile.
The chasers
It wasn’t handed to him. Kyle McClatchie, Herman Loubser, Luke Jerling, Allen John, Estiaan Conradie, Daniel van Tonder, and Austin Bautista all finished one shot back at six under, turning the leaderboard into rush-hour traffic. Gabrielle Venter, meanwhile, flew the flag for the Sunshine Ladies Tour, carding 70 and 69 to finish at three under in a share of 19th.
A fitting chapter in the Vodacom Origins of Golf
By lifting the trophy, Porteous joins the prestigious roll call of winners in the Vodacom Origins of Golf series, a Sunshine Tour staple since 2004. Ironically, this wasn’t his first flirtation with the series – he lost a playoff back in 2014. This time, though, he wasn’t letting it slip away.
The win also vaults him into 11th place on the Sunshine Tour’s Courier Guy Order of Merit – proof that this comeback has teeth.
For Porteous, the journey back has been long, painful, and at times invisible. But at Gowrie Farm, the South African reminded the golfing world that he’s not done yet. Not by a long shot.
