Heraty Jnr opened the event with a then MENA Tour record equalling 62 and closed it with the circuit’s then lowest final round score of 65 to offer his ill idol the ultimate pick me up.

“It was a tough week, but everybody was pretty supportive which kind of calmed me down. I wanted to win it for him and that gave me extra strength, making the win very, very special,” said 26-year-old Englishman.

Fast-forward 12 months and Heraty is back at the scene of his maiden and thus far sole MENA Tour win for the penultimate event of the development Pro-Am season. Thankfully the Heraty men are in a better space too.

“My dad is doing well now and it feels great to come back to the venue of my first win on the tour.”

After a injury-disrupted season, Heraty needs to play the Sahara Kuwait Championship to qualify for next week’s Tour Championship in Ajman – the top 50 pros and top 10 amateurs make the cut for Al Zorah proving they’ve played a minimum of seven events.

Related: Elson ends 14-year wait for second tour victory, on cusp of winning multiple European and PGA Tour starts

This will be Heraty’s seventh start (likewise for Welshman Toby Hunt) and he’s trending nicely having finished 11th and 3rd in his last two starts, the Golf Citizen Abu Dhabi Open and Jordan’s AYLA Championship. The season-best in Jordan could have been better to but for an opening 75 but he’s comfortably inside the top 50 at 33rd and will be looking to climb higher.

“Hopefully, I will be able to pick up where I left off last year, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself,” Heraty said.” I’m just hoping to play well again and see where that leaves me.”

After his victory in Jordan, Jamie Elson tops the order-of-merit race on 32,453 points and has destiny in his own hands with a 10,033 buffer to second placed Luke Joy and just the two events remaining. Conversely, fellow Englishman Joy (22, 420) and Swede Fredrik From (20, 311) know exactly what they need to do to drag themselves back into the OOM title race which promises the winner starts in the European Tour’s Omega Dubai Desert Classic, the Maybank Championship in Malaysia, Morocco’s Hassan II Trophee and the PGA Tour’s DEAN & DELUCA Invitational at Colonial CC. A full Sunshine Tour card for 2018 and exemption to the final stage of qualifying for the Asian Tour also await the MENA Tour champion which would give Elson options and he is also through to the second stage of European Tour Q-School.

Heraty with Wael Abdulrahman Al Welayti, member of Sahara Kuwait’s golf advisory committee.

The post Heraty back to defend Kuwait title in much happier circumstances appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Gray
MG Keyser is on the cusp of back-to-back titles but the MENA Tour’s most decorated player looms large in the rear view mirror of the history-hunting Dubai-based South African.

Fresh from victory at last week’s Dubai Creek Open, Keyser signed for his second successive 67 at the Els Club on Tuesday to move to -10 at the $30,000 Golf Citizen Classic.The 30-year-old Pretorian will start Wednesday’s final round with a two shot advantage over Welshman Toby Hunt, Pakistani Hamza Amin and, perhaps most ominously, Englishman Zane Scotland.

A back-injury has seriously curtailed Scotland’s 2017 campaign to the point where the 10-time MENA Tour winner was forced out of the Creek Open after just 27 holes. But the buzz of being in contention again certainly helped dull the pain as the tour’s first honourary (and only fully exempt) member backed up his opening 69 with a 67 Tuesday.

“I have not been playing golf for a long time due to a bad back. It’s still hurting, but it feels great just to give myself a chance this week [and] feel that buzz again of getting into contention,” said Scotland whose last MENA Tour win came at the 2016 Royal Golf Mohammed Open in Morocco.

“I don’t have too high expectations heading into the final round, we’ll see how things unfold. Of course, shooting a 67 has certainly added to my confidence.”

Keyser rebounded from a bogey-bogey start with four back-nine birdies and an eagle Tuesday in his bids to emulate Scotland, the only back-to-back winner on the MENA Tour.

“I missed at least four to five mid-range birdie putts on the front nine before finally holing one on the ninth. With that putt, my putter suddenly went hot,” said Keyser who flushed a five-iron from 222 yards to within 15 feet on the 13th before holing the eagle putt.

“I am striking the ball really well and just having fun out there.  You never know what tomorrow holds but one this is certain, I will go out there and have some fun.”

Sweden’s Oscar Hertzberg produced Tuesday’s highlight by holing a three-wood shot from 296 yards on the par-5 18th at the Els for the rarest of all golfing birds, an albatross

The glorious two was set up by a 340 yard drive, is just the second double eagle in MENA Tour history (following Moroccan Channane Addelali at the 2013 Royal Golf D’Anfa) and propelled the 22-year-old into a tie for 28th on +1, nine shots behind Keyser.

Overnight leader Abhishek Jha, meanwhile, endured a miserable day, his seven-over 79 littered with eight dropped shots including a triple bogey on the par-4 10th to slide down the leaderboard into a share of 23rd on level par.

Sweden’s Henric Sturehed and Max Smith were tied for fifth on -8, one clear of the English duo of Stuart Archibald and Craig Hinton, the 2016 MENA Tour champion.

Englishmen Taylor Carter and Todd Clements led the amateur division on +1, two shots ahead of Saud Al Sharif (Saudi Arabia) and German Marcus Toennessen. UAE national team rep Khalid Yousuf carded a level-par 72 to make the cut.

The post Zane Scotland, the MENA Tour’s only back-to-back winner, surprisingly poised to prevent MG Keyser emulating his feat appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.