The eagle has landed for car-prize winner Marcel Siem
Like the three musketeers, Ross Fisher, George Coetzee and Marcel Siem produced some swashbuckling shots in the same threeball yesterday to dominate the first round of the Nedbank Golf Challenge.
Englishman Fisher enjoyed a two-stroke lead after carding a six-under-par 66 around the Gary Player Country Club layout.
In a three-way tie for second were Coetzee and Siem, who produced a mini-miracle eagle on the penultimate hole to bounce back up the leaderboard.
The third in the tie was Frenchman Alexander Levy, the only golfer in this 30-man field who managed not to drop a shot.
Fisher had one bogey on the par-three 16th, and Coetzee's only blemish came on the par-four 18th.
But Siem had managed three, interspersed with five birdies, by the time he reached the par-four 17th hole, where a Volvo V40 was up for grabs to the first player scoring an eagle.
Siem played cautiously, hitting his 168m approach shot to the right of the green but the ball bounced exactly on the collar of the green and was redirected almost 90 degrees, directly at the pin, rolling in to land Siem the vehicle - which he plans to give to his mother.
Fisher and Coetzee were content with their single bogeys.
"It was a shame. But to go around here one bogey and seven birdies, six under, I'll definitely take that and run," said Fisher, who enjoyed success the last time he played in South Africa, winning the Tshwane Open.
"One loose shot on 16 ... I was a little bit disappointed. But apart from that I felt like I struck the ball very nicely today."
Fisher, who birdied all four of the par fives, used his driver wherever possible.
Coetzee started the round on fire with three straight birdies, and then added two more around the turn before hitting a dry spell.
Even so, he played well to save par on the 14th, after hitting the ball into trouble on the right.
But after missing his approach into the 18th green, he left his first putt too short, and missed the par effort.
He said: "All in all I'm happy with the round today. Obviously starting with three birdies was special. Playing my first Nedbank I wasn't expecting that, but obviously a pleasant surprise."
Defending champion Thomas Bjorn bombed out, sitting bot-tom of the 30-man leaderboard on 80.
Leading Scores
-6: Ross Fisher (Eng) 66
-4: George Coetzee (SA), Marcel Siem (Ger), Alexander Levy (Fra) 68
-2: Brooks Koepka (US), Stephen Gallacher (Scot), Charl Schwartzel (SA), Louis Oosthuizen (SA), Miguel Jimenez (Spa), Tim Clark (SA) 70
-1: Luke Donald (Eng), Jonas Blixt (Swe), Thongchai Jaidee (Thai), Danny Willett (Eng) 71
E: Shane Lowry (Ire), Kiradech Aphibarnrat (Thai), Lee Westwood (Eng), Joost Luiten (Neth) 72
+1: Pablo Larrazabal (Spain), Dawie van der Walt (SA), Brendon Todd (US) 73
+2: Jaco Ahlers (SA), Tommy Fleetwood (Eng), James Donaldson (Wal), Martin Kaymer (Germany) 74
+3: Marc Warren (Scot) 75
+4: Mikko Ilonen ((Fin) 76
+5: Kevin Na (US), Danie van Tonder 77
+8: Thomas Bjorn (Ger) 80