{"id":301012,"date":"2025-12-05T20:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T20:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/301012\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T20:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T20:27:07","slug":"mckibbins-challenge-falters-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/301012\/","title":{"rendered":"McKibbin’s challenge falters in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom McKibbin’s challenge regressed following a second round 74 at the Nedbank Golf Challenge in Sun City.<\/p>\n

The Holywood golfer, who now plays on the LIV Tour and booked his spot at Augusta next year with a victory in Hong Kong last month<\/a>, had posted a bogey-free opening round at Gary Player CC to sit on four-under par overnight.<\/p>\n

However, a considerably messier round followed on Friday, which was blighted by a double-bogey 7 at the long 14th, with McKibbin driving into the bushes on both his drive and his approach and being forced to take a penalty drop after the latter.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, he recorded birdies on the 10th and 17th though these were cancelled out by dropped strokes at 8 and 18, the former European Open champion struggling to a two-over par 74 to sit on two-under par at the midway point.<\/p>\n

FULL LEADERBOARD<\/a><\/p>\n

He’s 10 strokes adrift of Norway’s Kristoffer Reitan, who retains the lead, though his three shot advantage has been whittled down to one after following his opening round 63 with a three-under par 69 on Friday.<\/p>\n

The Norwegian is one stroke clear of reigning Italian Open champion Adrian Saddier, the Frenchman posting a round of 67 to climb to 11-under.<\/p>\n

Two strokes further back on nine-under in a tied for third are Saddier’s compatriot Julian Guerrier and South Africa’s Christian Bezuidenhout, the latter posting the low round of the day with a 65 to delight the home crowds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom McKibbin’s challenge regressed following a second round 74 at the Nedbank Golf Challenge in Sun City. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-301012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}