{"id":13978,"date":"2026-04-26T16:36:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T15:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=13978"},"modified":"2026-04-26T16:36:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T15:36:32","slug":"englands-esme-hamilton-holds-nerve-to-win-south-african-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=13978","title":{"rendered":"England&#8217;s Esme Hamilton holds nerve to win South African Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Esme Hamilton held off a challenge from fellow Englishwoman Cara Gainer to win her first European Tour title at the South African Open.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hamilton started the day as joint leader with Slovenia&#8217;s Pia Babnik and stayed the course to finish two shots clear of Gainer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 26-year-old endured a difficult front nine, picking up a bogey on the third and a double bogey on the ninth, but settled on the home straight to end the day with a two-under-par 71.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is the first time Hamilton has laid her hands on European Tour silverware, at the 22nd attempt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Prior to this week&#8217;s event in Cape Town, Hamilton had only managed two top-10 finishes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gainer, 30, went into the final round in third place, and a shot adrift of the clubhouse leaders, but a one-under par 72 meant she fell just short.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Esme Hamilton held off a challenge from fellow Englishwoman Cara Gainer to win her first European Tour title at the South African Open. Hamilton started the day as joint leader with Slovenia&#8217;s Pia Babnik and stayed the course to finish two shots clear of Gainer. The 26-year-old endured a difficult front nine, picking up a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}