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The 2021 Joburg Open will usher in the start of the Sunshine Tour and European Tour’s major summer season in South African golf when the R17.5 million tournament is played at Randpark Golf Club from 25-28 November.

One of the City of Johannesburg’s flagship sporting events will begin a three-week stretch of international golf tournaments in South Africa that will be followed by the South African Open Championship (December 2-5) and the Alfred Dunhill Championship (December 9-12).

Further to this, the Joburg Ladies Open has also been announced as a co-sanctioned tournament between the Sunshine Ladies Tour and the Ladies European Tour, with a prize fund of €250 000 and set to be played at Soweto Country Club from 3-5 March.

“The Joburg Open has always been an important tournament to the City of Johannesburg because of the role it plays in showcasing the city to an international audience. I am delighted to be able to announce this year’s tournament which, now more than ever, is an important tool in our role as a city to continue to help stimulate the South African economy amidst the COVID-19 recovery,” said Matshidiso Mfikoe, the MMC for Finance for the City of Johannesburg.

“We are delighted to also announce the Joburg Ladies Open at Soweto Country Club. The rebirth of Soweto Country Club and its hosting of a professional tournament of this stature has been a shining example of what golf can do to uplift our community.”

Last November’s Joburg Open, won by Denmark’s Joachim B Hansen, was vital in stimulating the restart of the Sunshine Tour and South African professional golf following the hard lockdown. Hansen’s four rounds in the 60s helped him to a two-shot victory over home favourite Wilco Nienaber.

This will be the 14^th edition of a tournament that boasts a strong list of past champions including former Masters winner Charl Schwartzel, PGA Tour winner Branden Grace, and multiple European Tour winners George Coetzee, Richard Sterne and Darren Fichardt.

“We are extremely pleased to announce the Joburg Open as the first tournament on our co-sanctioning schedule at the end of this year,” said Thomas Abt, Commissioner of the Sunshine Tour.

“I’d like to the thank the City of Johannesburg for so graciously supporting us over the past several years. I would also like to pay tribute to the late Councillor Geoff Makhubo, the former Mayor of Johannesburg who sadly passed away. Councillor Makhubo was a very close friend of the Sunshine Tour and one of our greatest supporters who was passionate about seeing the Joburg Open succeed as a major international event for his city. Our thoughts will certainly be with him at this year’s tournament.

“We are also very proud to announce the co-sanctioning of the Joburg Ladies Open with the Sunshine Ladies Tour and Ladies European Tour, and to continue the important work at Soweto Country Club and this golf club’s role in inspiring a whole new generation of golfers.”

Keith Pelley, Chief Executive of the European Tour, said: “The City of Johannesburg has been a loyal partner to a Joburg Open tournament that has played a key role in our longstanding relationship with the Sunshine Tour. I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the City of Johannesburg, and also our condolences at the passing of Councillor Geoff Makhubo who was such a wonderful friend of this event over many years.”

Alexandra Armas, Chief Executive Officer of the Ladies European Tour, said: “We are delighted to add the Joburg Open to our 2022 schedule. Our sincere thanks to the authorities and the City of Johannesburg for supporting the women’s game. We have a longstanding relationship with the Sunshine Ladies Tour and the addition of a new co-sanctioned event will strengthen our collaboration and will impact positively on participation and interest in the women’s game in South Africa.”

JOHANNESBURG – The new Blair Atholl Championship delivered by The Courier Guy will tee off a strong build-up to the main summer schedule of the Sunshine Tour as the Tour’s finest professionals and two of the country’s leading amateurs gather at the prestigious Gary Player-designed golf course this week.

The R1 250 000 tournament begins on Thursday and finishes on Sunday, marking the first time that this iconic golf course designed by the legendary Black Knight will host a tournament on the Sunshine Tour.

The 72-hole tournament heralds the start of the build-up to the summer schedule that will culminate in the European Tour co-sanctioned tournaments at the end of this year.

Apart from the traditionally strong Sunshine Tour field taking part, the tournament will also feature South Africa’s number one ranked amateur Christiaan Maas, and Christiaan Burke, a three-time winner on the GolfRSA amateur calendar in the past three months, who have both been granted invitations to compete.

“We’re very excited to welcome the Blair Atholl Golf & Equestrian Estate to our schedule, as well as The Courier Guy as the headline sponsor of this week’s tournament, and to be able to add to our schedule and give our professionals more playing opportunities as they prepare for the upcoming summer,” said Thomas Abt, Commissioner of the Sunshine Tour.

“We’ve been working hard with all concerned at Blair Atholl for many years now to finally bring a major Sunshine Tour event to a magnificent golf course built by Gary Player on what was his beloved farm for many years. I’m very proud that we have reached this milestone and thank all concerned for helping to make this dream a reality for us.”

The Blair Atholl golf course has established itself as one of the finest creations in the impressive worldwide stable of Gary Player golf course designs. As one of the longest golf courses Player has ever designed, it promises to provide a stern test as a true championship layout.

“Gary Player spent over 20 years planning and designing what is today an unparalleled golf course at the heart of an unparalleled living experience on our estate. It is an absolute privilege for us to now be able to welcome Southern Africa’s professionals to our championship course, and we’re very proud to take up our place on the calendar of the Sunshine Tour,” said Paul Marks, Director of Golf at Blair Atholl Golf & Equestrian Estate.

The tournament provides another vital playing opportunity for the Sunshine Tour’s professionals and their caddies as the Tour continues with its growth strategy following the effects of the COVID-19 hard lockdown in 2020.

The Blair Atholl Championship delivered by The Courier Guy is now the fifth new tournament to be added to the Sunshine Tour schedule this year.

“The Blair Atholl Golf & Equestrian Estate has always had an ethos for excellence that mirrors the life philosophy of Gary Player, and a part of this is an emphasis on our community. As such, this is a great opportunity for us to showcase not only what we believe is the premier lifestyle choice in Johannesburg, but to also help the continued growth of the Sunshine Tour,” said Trevor Payne, General Manager of Blair Atholl Golf & Equestrian Estate.

Gilbert Phalafala, Chairman of the Blair Atholl Homeowners Association, said: “This is an exciting moment as we host a major professional golf tournament for the first time in our estate’s history, and we are looking forward to showcasing our world-class golf course as well as our beautiful estate.”

SUN CITY, North-West (16 October) – Lyle Rowe knew that if he kept knocking on doors one would eventually open again and Saturday was the day when his first Sunshine Tour title in five years finally arrived as he won the Blue Label Challenge at the Gary Player Country Club.

Rowe, one point off the lead going into the final round, shot a three-under-par 69 on Saturday for nine points, taking his overall tally over the four days to 33 points in the event that uses a modified Stableford scoring system.

That was four points clear – the equivalent of two birdies – of second-placed Dylan Mostert and was enough to give Rowe his third Sunshine Tour title and his first since winning the Zimbabwe Open in April 2016.

“I’ve been playing well for a while now and I just knew I needed to keep doing what I’ve been doing,” Rowe said. “It’s just a couple of shots every tournament and even though I didn’t make it easy for myself, I kept giving myself chances. I’ve gone back to the short putter, which gives me more feel, so I’ve been putting well and I’ve just been doing the right things mentally, controlling what I can on the course.”

It was also the Humewood golfer’s first win on South African soil as his other triumph came in the Zambia Open in June 2014.

“I was runner-up twice in this event in Swaziland, so I probably should have won there too! But to win on as great a golf course as this and in South Africa is special. I enjoy the format, I am quite aggressive and it shows I guess in that I get more birdies and bogeys, but a dropped shot is only minus a point while a birdie gets you two points,” Rowe said.

Where the 34-year-old Rowe really shut out the opposition was around the turn, where he played superbly to collect four successive birdies.

Despite bogeys on the 16^th and 17^th holes, Rowe failing to get out of a greenside bunker on his first attempt but hitting the next shot to three feet, Mostert was four points behind as they teed it up on the final hole.

But the left-hander sent his drive into the right rough and was unable to go direct for the green with his second. Rowe hit the perfect drive, laid up and then two-putted for a rock-solid par.

“I got nice momentum and confidence around the turn, which meant I went into the back nine feeling positive and I trusted myself down the stretch. I tried to get a bit too cute with that first bunker shot,” Rowe said.

Another left-hander, Ruan Korb, who was the second-round leader, fired the best round of the day, his 67 earning him 14 points and lifting him into a share of third with Jaco Ahlers on 27 points. Korb collected two eagles on the back nine, including one on the par-four 15^th when he drove the green.

Ockie Strydom was alone in fifth with 26 points.

SUN CITY, North-West (15 October) – The third round of the Blue Label Challenge at Gary Player Country Club once again showed golf’s wonderful ability to surprise us as qualifier Dylan Mostert soared to the top of the leaderboard with a four-under-par round of 68.

Mostert will go into Saturday’s final round with a one-point lead in the modified Stableford scoring system over the experienced Lyle Rowe, with first-round leader Ockie Strydom another point back.

Mostert began the penultimate round in seventh place, five points off Ruan Korb’s lead. Making the cut was an achievement alone for the 23-year-old because he has not managed that in his three previous Sunshine Tour events this year.

Hence his need to prequalify for this R1.5 million tournament.

The State Mines golfer birdied the par-three third hole, but his real charge up the leaderboard came around the turn when he picked up three birdies in four holes.

Two more birdies on the 14^th and 15^th holes sealed a marvellous round for Mostert.

Rowe was on fire on the back nine, where he collected six of his eight points and he is on track to contend for his first title since the Zimbabwe Open in 2016.

Strydom continued to be on a rollercoaster ride around one of South Africa’s most prestigious courses. His only points on the front nine were a minus-one for a bogey on the fourth, and on the back nine he mixed three birdies with two dropped shots.

Rhys Enoch and Jaco Ahlers both collected five points on Friday and finished on 21 points overall, in a tie for fourth place.

SUN CITY, North-West (14 October) – Ruan Korb is learning to stay patient and composed when things are not going his way in his third season on the Sunshine Tour, and he needed those qualities in the remorseless heat at the Gary Player Country Club on Thursday.

Korb kept his cool on a much tougher second day of the Blue Label Challenge, collecting six points in the modified Stableford scoring system and going to the top of the leaderboard on a total of 20.

The left-hander is one point ahead of first-round leader Ockie Strydom, who lost the lead thanks to a massive setback on the par-four 12^th, where he lost three points. Strydom finished his round with four points to end the halfway stage of the tournament on 19 points overall.

“I didn’t look like getting to 20 points at the turn,” Korb said after his round that featured four birdies and two bogeys. “It was hot and the wind was pretty tough, swirling the whole time – it never seemed to come from the same place for longer than 10 minutes.

“I just had to keep concentrating for the whole 18 holes and, after getting going with birdies on five and six, I knew the most difficult tee-shots were coming around the turn. Unfortunately I made bogey at nine, but kept my cool and had a nice sand-save for birdie on 11.

“I feel solid about my game, I have beautiful new irons – Titleist T100s – and that has given me more confidence. I like the format too because I am an aggressive player,” Korb added.

While many of the golfers were forced to kneel before the stringent test that is the Gary Player Country Club with the wind up, it was a good day for Keagan Thomas, who picked up nine points to go to third on 17 points.

The experienced Lyle Rowe produced the second-best round of the day with his 10-point tally, including four birdies and an eagle on the 11^th, lifting him to 16 points and a tie for fourth with Jaco Ahlers and Rhys Enoch.

SUN CITY, North-West (13 October) – Ockie Strydom is the owner of 37 top-10 finishes on the Sunshine Tour and was the runner-up at the Gary Player Country Club in the 2019 Sun City Challenge, so it is never too surprising to see him at the top of the leaderboard as he was after the first round of the Blue Label Challenge at the famous 7831-yard course on Wednesday.

In a tournament using a modified Stableford scoring system, Strydom shot a wonderful seven-under-par 65, his eight birdies and just one bogey giving him a total of 15 points. That left the 36-year-old one point ahead of Ruan Korb (66), while Jayden Schaper and Rhys Enoch also shot six-under-par but finished on 13 points because they did not have an eagle on their cards, as Korb did on the par-five 11^th.

Strydom’s solitary bogey came on the first hole, and he stayed on minus-one points through the next four holes, but thereafter the Serengeti golfer found the conditions and very warm temperatures much to his liking with three successive birdies from the sixth hole. He was especially potent on the back nine, where he collected five birdies.

“On the first hole I hit two in the bush and I thought ‘here we go!’. But I kept calm and then I changed my ball after five holes because that one wasn’t really working. I then got a lucky bounce on the sixth green and I just started making birdies,” Strydom said. “I was hitting it nicely off the tee, finding the fairways and then hitting my irons quite close. The putting then works out itself.”

Strydom is known to be a big hitter off the tee and, with summer rains having arrived in the Pilanesberg, the fact that there is not as much run on the fairways as in winter has suited him.

“Most of the previous events here have been in winter, when the ball really runs on the fairways. But now it’s softer, it feels a club or two longer that normal. But I like that because it means not everyone can attack the greens from long distance. They are very soft greens though and the ball either comes back or stops dead,” Strydom said.

The man who made his breakthrough win at the 2019 Vodacom Origins of Golf Series event at Sishen has enjoyed a solid season and is 30^th on the Order of Merit. His tee-to-green work has been consistent, and now, as the big money co-sanctioned events loom, his putter has started coming to life.

“I was a bit off at the beginning of the season, slowly getting better and I have not struggled from tee-to-green in the last six months. My putting was a bit of a problem though and my coach Doug Wood has been working very hard at it. I’m starting to get more comfortable with the process,” Strydom said.

Toto Thimba Junior has returned from his bucket-list trip to St Andrews for the Dunhill Links Championship in fine fettle and he shot a four-under-par 68 for 11 points.

Welshman Enoch has also returned to the Sunshine Tour, for the first time since winning the KitKat Group Pro-Am in March, and has come off an up-and-down European Tour campaign. But he looked in excellent touch on Wednesday, his only dropped shot coming on the par-five 18^th, which was his ninth hole.

The Sunshine Tour has welcomed the announcement that from Monday 11 October South Africa will be removed from the red list for entering the United Kingdom, calling it a significant milestone in the return to normality for professional golf.

“This is a major step forward for the large number of Sunshine Tour professionals that we have playing on the European Tour, and who have found it increasingly difficult to travel during this time,” said Thomas Abt, Commissioner of the Sunshine Tour.

“Travel is a critical component of professional golf. A number of our members have been unable to take up the full opportunities they’ve earned to play in tournaments in the United Kingdom or on the European Tour because of these travel restrictions.

“Many of our professionals also base themselves in the United Kingdom or travel through there as part of their European Tour schedule, and these restrictions have been a major challenge for them.

“We are grateful for the work of the South African government in campaigning for South Africa to be removed from the red list as it also plays a significant role in the co-sanctioned tournaments we host with the European Tour on our schedule.

“This is indeed a big step towards returning to normality in professional golf.”

PORT EDWARD, KwaZulu-Natal (7 October) – Rain continued to fall on the already waterlogged Wild Coast Sun Country Club course overnight and with no play possible on Thursday, the Sunshine Tour took the decision to cancel the SunBet Challenge instead of trying to ram the tournament into an ever-decreasing window of better weather.

The event was originally scheduled to run from Wednesday to Friday, but the first round was postponed to Thursday due to heavy rain on the Wild Coast causing the course to be waterlogged and the tournament extended to Saturday.

At least five holes were still unplayable on Thursday and, with more rain forecast, playing a shortened tournament would amount to an unfair contest for certain golfers.

“There’s been no improvement since yesterday, there is still standing water on the course, the bunkers are full of water despite us pumping it out and in some fairways there is nowhere to drop the ball. So it’s unplayable for the same reasons as Wednesday and it would not be golf if we were to play. The rain just has nowhere to go because the water table is so high,” tournament director Gary Todd said on Thursday morning.

PORT EDWARD, KwaZulu-Natal (October 6) – The country’s leading golfers arrived at the Wild Coast Sun Country Club on Wednesday morning for the first round of the SunBet Challenge to find heavy rain pouring down, eventually leading to the postponement of the opening 18 holes.

The good news is that the Sunshine Tour have been able to push the finish to Saturday, so the R1 million event will remain a 54-hole tournament.

Tournament Director Gary Todd was hopeful of all three rounds being able to be played.

“We had to postpone the first round because of a waterlogged golf course. The golf course has had over 100 millimetres of rain over the last three days, and the water table is just too high at the moment. The forecast is good for the rest of the week and there is a bit of a breeze, so we are targeting a Saturday finish,” Todd said.

The first three-balls will tee-off at 6.40am on Thursday.

Sunshine Tour professional Siyanda Mwandla has been working hard to “stay in the moment” and let not the weight of playing this game for a living overwhelm him. And at the moment, he’s doing a pretty good job of it.

Mwandla was one of the most exciting amateurs in the country during his days at the Ernie Els and Fancourt Foundation, and then earned his place on the Sunshine Tour last season and finished 137^th on the Money List after playing 10 events.

This year, he’s has built on that experience and is sitting 107^th on the Order of Merit having played a dozen tournaments. But it was the last of those, the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series at Mount Edgecombe, which gave him the most confidence and which he’s keen to keep building on.

The 27-year-old posted his best-ever round on tour, a 67 that saw him lying second after the first day. A pair of 73s to close saw Mwandla finish in a tie for 38^th, but it is all part of the learning experience.

“The way I approach tournaments this year has been the difference. In the past, if I played with friends on a Saturday or on my own, I was happy and excited, but then I would be playing in the Sunshine Tour on the Wednesday and I would be anxious. It felt like two different rounds when it should be the same. I didn’t understand that I was meant to be having fun on the course, whatever I was playing in,” he says.

“I’ve been working with a sports psychologist and no tournament should be bigger in terms of mindset. I need to stay in the moment, in the present, and not get too far ahead of myself. So nowadays I don’t ask for much. I just want to play the final round and make cuts consistently.”

His Mount Edgecombe performance was a sign for Mwandla that the swing changes he put in place with coach Emile Steinmann are starting to settle in as the Sunshine Tour now starts building towards the big end-of-year tournaments.

“The swing changes were not all that comfortable at first but we are trying to get more consistency. I stuck with it and two weeks ago I started to see some results, which has been very pleasing.”

For now at least, “the moment” is a pretty good place to be for Mwandla.

The Sunshine Tour travels to the Wild Coast Sun Country Club this week for the SunBet Challenge taking place from Wednesday-Friday (6-8 October) this week.