Spanish 'tourist' Martin grabs SA Open lead

Martin fired a 68 for a 133 two-round total as he seeks back-to-back titles.

Spanish tourist-cum-golfer Pablo Martin continued to have fun in the sun Friday by snatching a two-stroke halfway lead in the South African Open.

Martin, who arrived with his sister a few weeks ago to view animals at the world famous Kruger National Park and play some golf, fired a 68 for a 133 two-round total as he seeks back-to-back titles.

Last weekend at the Alfred Dunhill Championship, he also made his move in the second round to take a lead he held for the rest of the first European-South African tour co-sanctioned tournament.

Martin rose from joint second overnight, a stroke behind Swede Martin Erlandsson at Pearl Valley Golf Estate near Cape Town, into sole occupation of top spot with experienced Dane Anders Hansen lying second after carding a 69.

Another Spaniard Alejandro Canizares is on 136 after a 67 with Italian Edoardo Molinari (69) and South African Louis Oosthizen (69) a stroke further back on a par-72 course designed by American legend Jack Nicklaus.

England-based Oosthuizen is hoping to become the ninth consecutive South African winner of an event first played 99 years ago and the second oldest national golf championship after the British Open.

Martin, whose Dunhill triumph made him the first golfer to win European tour events as an amateur and a professional, snatched four birdies and a double-bogey six on his first nine to turn two under par.

And after another bogey, Martin steadied to collect three consecutive birdies and raise hopes of becoming the first foreign winner of the championship since Zimbabwean Mark McNulty in 2001.

Hansen had a mixed round of six birdies, a bogey, a double bogey and 10 pars while the shot of the day came from Scot Callum MacAulay with a hole in one at the 15th hole.

Defending champion Richard Sterne fired a 69 - two strokes better than his opening round - to lie on 140, seven shots adrift of 23-year-old Malaga-born Martin.