South African Open: Top 10 power rankings at Randpark GC

If you believe in the hot hand theory, you might as well roll with Kurt Kitayama.

The 25-year-old American and UNLV product won last week’s Mauritius Open in just his third European Tour start.

He’s bounced around on the Asian Tour and Web.com Tour in 2018 and recently took fourth place at European Tour qualifying school.

Kitayama won’t be heading back to Q school anytime soon.

“This whole year has been, well, what a great year. It’s been a different journey for me,” Kitayama said. “It’s been really exciting, being able to travel all over the globe and I’m going to continue to travel more. I’m really looking forward to it.”

Kitayama was tied for the lead heading to Sunday in Mauritius. He got off to a hot start and showed his mettle to make birdie on 17 to hold off a charge and win by two at 20-under.

Like most young players these days, Kitayama can smoke the ball. He led last week’s field in driving distance at 326.6 yards and also hit 79.2 percent of greens in regulation to place sixth in the field.

This will be Kitayama’s first time at the South African Open/Randpark.

It’s also his third week playing in a row, and after a win, fatigue could be a factor.

I’m bullish on Kitayama’s future and more wins to come. Maybe lightning will strike twice.