Buhai, Reto hoping to swing a few more medals for SA

It’s been a whirlwind 48 hours for South African golfer Ashleigh Buhai these past two days ahead of her tee-off at the 2024 Olympics Games at Le Golf National today.

Not only was her flight from the US to Paris delayed by a couple of hours, but she also had a nervous wait for her golf clubs.

Buhai, who has a 12.17pm start today, was only reunited with her gear yesterday, fetching the clubs from the airport before returning to the Olympic Village.

Despite the hiccups, the 35-year-old South African Major winner will be in high spirits and ready to compete in the Olympics. She will play alongside Leona Maguire of Ireland and Georgia Hall from Great Britain in the first round.

Fellow South African Paula Reto is the other local in the field, teeing off at 11.33am with Klara Davidson Spilkova (Czech Republic) and Mariajo Uribe (Colombia). The 34-year-old Reto disappointingly missed out on the Tokyo Games in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic but will be keen to make up for lost time when she begins her onslaught.

The South Africans will look to get the first golfing medal for Team SA at the Games after Erik van Rooyen and Christiaan Bezuidenhout missed out in the men’s event.

They would have hopefully passed on some bits of information, especially on how tough the roughs and greens were, to their compatriots.

Buhai, ranked 56th in the world, and Reto (163rd) will both compete in their second Olympics golf event after the Rio Games, where they ended 50th and 16th, respectively.

All eyes will be on defending champion Nelly Korda (9.55am start) to see if she can shake off a string of poor performances to claim gold in Paris. She will be up against South Korea’s Jin Young Ko and China’s Ruoning Yin who are both in the top five in the world.

Another trio to look out for will be local Celine Boutier (7th in the world), Lilia Vu of the USA (2nd) and Amy Yang of Korea (3rd) who tees off at 11.55am.