He’s become a familiar figure on the PGA Tour in the last couple of seasons and earlier this year finished runner-up at the John Deere Classic. That’s clearly his standout performance here but he’d preceded it with a pair of top 25s and also posted sixth place when defending that South African Open title a year later. On the basis of his five-shot win alone, Christiaan Bezuidenhout deserves to be on any shortlist for an event held at Gary Player Country Club. With Tommy Fleetwood taking the title in 2019 and Branden Grace scoring a home win in 2017, it means the last four winners at the Gary Player CC were either English or local South Africans. That said, hitting it long is still an asset on a parkland-style course that features Kikuyu grass fairways and Bentgrass greens.Īdd in narrow fairways along with a raft of long par fours and it seems scoring would be high.Ĭhristiaan Bezuidenhout defied that by winning the South African Open staged there in 2020 with a score of 18-under but that was five clear of anyone else while only Lee Westwood managed better than 12-under in the last three editions of this event (2017-2019) However, with Sun City over 1,000 feet above sea level, the ball flies further than normal. The course, Gary Player Country Club, is an iconic one and, on first glance, its length looks somewhat alarming at over 7,800 yards.

Just 66 players peg it up this week but they’re battling for a hefty prize fund of $6m.ĭue to the pandemic, this will be the first staging of the tournament since 2019. The first is the lucrative Nedbank Golf Challenge and offers the final chance for players to qualify for next week’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. South Africa has been a staple of the DP World Tour and the end of this year’s schedule and the start of next involves no less than four co-sanctioned events in the country.

Nedbank golf challenge odds