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When MJ Viljoen tees it up in this week’s Vodacom Origins of Golf tournament at Sishen Golf Club, it will take him back to memories of being a young boy and watching the Sunshine Tour professionals in this exact tournament, and standing at the back of the 18^th green asking for golf balls as they came off.

Such is the long and illustrious history of the Vodacom Origins of Golf series, which teed off on the Tour in 2004, that a 26-year-old professional like Viljoen has literally grown up with it.

Growing up in Bloemfontein, Viljoen remembers well that whenever the Sunshine Tour came to this part of the world for the Vodacom Origins of Golf, it was a special occasion for an aspiring young golfer.

“My dad was very involved with the Nomads, and with this tournament in particular my dad actually took me out of school to come and watch this tournament and help with the leaderboard scoring,” Viljoen said at Sishen Golf Club on Tuesday.

“I was that young boy who asked for golf balls from the professionals. I remember Doug McGuigan, Des Terblanche and Hennie Otto giving me golf balls. It was always great for me to come to this event and see the Sunshine Tour pros.

“And now to be playing with many of them is amazing. It’s quite special to know that this tournament has come so far, and that I’m now playing with the guys who used to give me golf balls when I was a kid coming to watch.”

Viljoen is hoping to use some of his local knowledge to give him an advantage this week when the 54-hole tournament tees off on Thursday.

“It’s a beautiful golf course. It’s a different layout to your standard golf course. One of the most interesting things about this course is that if you hit a tree here (the course meanders through what was once a kameeldoring forest) the chances of your ball staying in the tree is good.

“This course is quite demanding off the tee box. But my feeling is that you should still take it on off the tee box. You’re going to hit the ball in trouble a few times this week, but I feel like you need to still take this course on a bit. I feel if you’re too soft on the course it’s going to cost you even more.” – Michael Vlismas

Photo: Tyrone Winfield/Sunshine Tour

The Sunshine Tour is delighted to announce a new partnership with leading health club brand, Planet Fitness, that will give all of its member professionals nationwide gym access for the elite physical training that modern professional golfers require.

The new partnership will see all Sunshine Tour professionals receiving a Planet Fitness Blue Club or Just Gym membership at one of their 50 world-class gyms nationwide.

“It’s a pleasure for us to welcome on board Planet Fitness as one of our newest partners. Our professionals are always looking for that extra edge in competition and being physically prepared for tournaments is a vital part of the training routine of any modern golf professional. Planet Fitness offers our members access to a world-class facility with the latest training methods available,” said Thomas Abt, Commissioner of the Sunshine Tour.

Celebrating its 25^th anniversary in 2021, Planet Fitness has established itself as the fastest growing South African owned health and fitness brand in the country, with clubs in Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.

“We are proud of our South African heritage and are tremendously proud of this country’s sporting professionals – we understand the commitment it takes to build stamina in a sporting career,” says Mannee de Wet, MD of Planet Fitness, who earlier this year backed South African Olympic and Paralympic teams with a four-year Tokyo to Paris commitment which elevated the brand even further as an Official Olympic Team Training Facility.

“We’re extremely excited about our new partnership with the Sunshine Tour and are looking forward to working with the professional golfers to ensure they’re able to perform at their best. Ours is a world of health and fitness and our passion lies in supporting people to reach their fitness goals, ranging from those who just want to lead a healthy lifestyle, to elite athletes such as professional golfers. Our clubs, training programmes, classes and personal trainers are constantly evolving to ensure we are ahead of the game with a reputation for having a smart tech edge and partnering with the world’s best when it comes to equipment and facilities,” said De Wet.

During the pandemic, health and safety has been the number one priority at Planet Fitness, having lobbied with the fitness industry for five months last year during lockdown to set a world-class 20-pg compliance code of protocols. Apart from health clubs and gyms now being one of the most regulated and sanitised environments in the country, all Planet Fitness clubs have a Covid-19 Compliance Officer as part of their process to ensure that gyms are safe for members and staff.

Planet Fitness will be opening 12 brand new health clubs across the country in the next 12 months to complement the 50 it already has, making it even easier to support the training goals of The Sunshine Tour’s professional golfers.

Estiaan Conradie claimed his maiden Sunshine Tour title when he won the SunBet Challenge hosted by Time Square Casino at Wingate Park Country Club on Friday, and his dad was there to receive a pin flag from the 18^th green that his son signed and handed to him.

Conradie closed with a 70 to finish on 10 under par 206, three strokes clear of second-placed Malcolm Mitchell who signed for a final round of 72. Louis Albertse took third place on six under par with a closing 69.

The victory was a sweet one for Conradie as it came on his home course, in front of family and friends, and after a lengthy recovery process from hip surgery which kept him out of the game for four months in 2020.

“I’m very happy that I could get it done this week. It means a lot to me, especially winning at home,” he said.

“It’s a massive relief for me to win. It feels like it’s been so long that I haven’t got it done, and to finally get over the line feels massive. It’s such a boost for my confidence.”

Most importantly, Conradie is now tied on 1-1 with his brother and fellow Sunshine Tour professional Ruan, who won on Tour before him in 2019.

“I can finally tell him he’s got nothing on me anymore. But I suppose the race is now on to see who gets the second win first,” he said.

Conradie went into the final round with a one-stroke lead and was determined to take an aggressive approach on a course he knows so well.

“The gameplan was always to be aggressive. I made an eagle on the second hole which was great. And then I made bogey on the third hole when my ball got stuck in a tree and I had to take an unplayable. From there up to about the 11^th hole it was just a mixed bag actually of playing good shots and getting a bad reward and vice versa. But then I made birdie on 12 and that settled me down. I finished nice and strong with four birdies and just one bogey in my last five holes,” he said.

The Sunshine Tour travels to Sishen Golf Club next week for the second tournament on the Vodacom Origins of Golf series. – Michael Vlismas

Photo: Tyrone Winfield/Sunshine Tour

The long journey back from hip surgery finally showed signs of being over for Estiaan Conradie as he moved to the top of the leaderboard with one round to go in the SunBet Challenge hosted by Time Square Casino at the Wingate Park Country Club.

Local favourite Conradie, playing his home course, added a 65 to his opening 71 to climb to eight under par overall and one stroke clear of Malcolm Mitchell going into Friday’s final round. Jaco Ahlers is well placed on six under par.

The view from the top of the leaderboard is certainly a pleasing one for Conradie, who spent a large part of 2020 recovering from hip surgery.

“I was out for about four months. It was a long and often frustrating process to get back, and I feel like now I’m making good progress again. It definitely feels like it’s moving in the right direction. It’s been a long process but I feel like I’m on the other side of that now,” said Conradie.

The hip operation was a success, but the timing was frustrating for Conradie as he was playing some good golf when he had to make the decision to have the surgery.

“I was feeling so good about my game, and then I had to stop. But I’m happy I went through it because it’s definitely made me stronger.”

Conradie has the confidence of playing his home course this week and says he’ll use that local knowledge in the final round.

“I’ve played a couple of smaller tournaments on this course and I know how to play a final round here. I just need to be patient and wait for my opportunities to come. The benefit is that I know on which holes I can be aggressive. I’m hitting my driver really well at the moment so it helps to know when is the right time to be aggressive off the tee.”

And his brother and fellow Sunshine Tour professional Ruan has provided Conradie with the perfect motivation to claim a victory.

“Ruan won a tournament in 2019, and when I was playing so well before the hip operation I thought that was my time. But now I’ve got another chance.” – Michael Vlismas

Photo: Tyrone Winfield/Sunshine Tour

The Sunshine Tour has launched an exciting new initiative as part of its transformation drive and will be helping to develop golf rules officials that in turn can also strengthen the Tour’s base of officials working at tournaments around the country.

The Tour launched this new initiative at this week’s SunBet Challenge hosted by Time Square Casino at Wingate Park Country Club, where an aspiring rules official with a minimum Rules of Golf Level 2 qualification will shadow a Sunshine Tour rules official under tournament conditions and to gain experience.

Johannes Mnyandu, an employee with the Department of Public Works who also plays for the Gauteng North Golf Union’s Mid-Amateur Interprovincial team and is a member at Akasia Golf Club, will shadow Sunshine Tour Chief Referee, Reinard Kilian, at Wingate this week.

“The aim of this initiative is twofold, namely to help with the transformation of our industry as well as grow the base of part-time Sunshine Tour rules officials that we can call upon at our tournaments around the country. There is a strong base of part-time rules officials who currently work in golf administration or are very competent golfers, and we’d like to assist in upskilling them to a level where they can be an asset to the Sunshine Tour and our member professionals,” said Kilian.

Photo: Johannes Mnyandu (left) and Sunshine Tour Chief Referee Reinard Kilian at this week’s SunBet Challenge hosted by Time Square Casino at Wingate Park Country Club. Credit: Tyrone Winfield/Sunshine Tour.

Trevor Fisher Jnr. was delighted to lead the first round of the SunBet Challenge hosted by Time Square Casino after what he’s described as a “challenging” past two years of trying to rediscover his game.

Fisher Jnr. opened with a five-under-par 67 at Wingate Park Country Club on Wednesday and leads the field by a single stroke. Adilson da Silva, Benjamin Follett-Smith and Louis Albertse are his nearest challengers.

The course was tricky on the opening day of this Sunshine Tour event, with a few tough pin placements and a bit of wind to keep things even more interesting.

But Fisher Jnr. started his round in spectacular fashion and was four under par through his opening three holes after holing out with his second for an eagle at the first and then birdying the next two holes. He made a further three birdies and two bogeys for his opening 67.

“That was a dream start. I almost drove the green on the par-four first hole and chipped in there, and then made two great up and downs for birdie at the next two holes. So that was very nice,” he said.

Fisher Jnr. is a nine-time winner on the Sunshine Tour and also a European Tour champion after his victory in the 2015 Africa Open. But he’s struggled over the past two years to recreate that form.

“The last few years have been challenging. When I’m playing well, I feel like I can play against anyone in the world. But I started getting stuck with my swing and it’s been a challenging road to fix that. My technique has been wrong, so it’s hard to stay mentally strong on the golf course when you’re not hitting the shots you want. I feel like I’ve been doing that for the past two years.”

But he’s worked consistently at trying to remedy this, and Wednesday’s 67 was certainly a step in the right direction.

“I feel like I’m releasing better in my swing. I’m trying to stay patient. This is basically a game of consistency and patience. You have to keep working at it and working at understanding the game.

“It was nice to put it all together today. But this is a long-term process I’m busy with. I’m just going to keep trying to get better and better.” – Michael Vlismas

Photo: Tyrone Winfield/Sunshine Tour

Finding yourself is a common theme in the world at the moment. In the strangest way, Sunshine Tour professional Jaco Prinsloo’s search to develop a better version of himself actually took him back to a previous version of himself. And it’s translating into one of his best seasons on the Sunshine Tour.

Prinsloo heads into this week’s SunBet Challenge hosted by Time Square Casino at Wingate Park Country Club with a sense that a few things are coming together quite nicely in his career.

He won twice on the Sunshine Tour in March, has finished no worse than 22^nd in his last nine tournaments, is ranked third on the Sunshine Tour Money List, and recently signed a deal with Openfield Marketing to represent him.

“I am aware of things looking like they’re moving in a direction,” he says on the driving range at Wingate as he prepares for Wednesday’s first round of this R1 million 54-hole tournament.

“But I’m just trying to keep my head down and keep working and become as good as I can be.”

It was actually this search to improve that led to Prinsloo making a significant change in his career. While working with his coach on changing his swing to what they believed was something more textbook, Prinsloo realised he’d lost his competitive advantage.

“I was working on getting into certain positions in my swing, and I felt like the one thing that made me a good golfer was taken away from me. I’ve always felt what made me good is not my swing but my ball sense. So, I went back to the old Jaco. I just focused on hitting the ball and playing more freely. I wasn’t going to try and swing like a robot.”

The ability to play more freely has also given Prinsloo a more free approach to thinking about his career, and he’s trying not to get too bogged down in the “What Ifs” of the current pandemic and just focus on what’s in front of him.

“You know, I’d love to be playing on the Challenge Tour now, but I didn’t have a visa in place. I’d also love to be planning for a European Tour Qualifying School at the end of the season, or an Asian Tour. But none of that is happening at the moment. Instead of seeing it as missed opportunities, I’m going to focus on my goals on the Sunshine Tour. If I keep playing like I am, those opportunities will come around again.”

Prinsloo joins a quality field at Wingate this week.

Ruan Korb is back to defend his title. Jean Hugo, Hennie Otto, Adilson da Silva, Keith Horne, Trevor Fisher Jnr., Jaco van Zyl, Thriston Lawrence, Jaco Ahlers, Jayden Schaper and Neil Schietekat are all in action in Pretoria.

But Prinsloo isn’t focused on them and is staying true to his desire of not looking too far ahead.

“I just want to go out there, see how few shots I can hit, and sign my scorecard.” – Michael Vlismas

Photo: Carl Fourie/Sunshine Tour

Vodacom has once again thrown its full support behind South African professional golf with the announcement of a significant donation to permanent Sunshine Tour caddies to help alleviate the economic pressures they have suffered during the coronavirus pandemic and specifically the hard lockdown of professional golf in 2020.

During the first Vodacom Origins of Golf tournament at De Zalze Golf Estate this August, Vodacom announced a R409 500.00 donation to the Sunshine Tour and specifically for the South African Caddie Association (SACA), which will be used to help support all professional caddies approved by the Tour.

The donation comes after Vodacom confirmed the return of the Vodacom Origins of Golf series to the Sunshine Tour’s schedule in 2021 and 2022 after it had to be postponed last year due to the Lockdown Level 5 restrictions.

The five-tournament series teed off in August, with the final tournament set to be played in 2022 and with a total of R5 million in prize money on offer throughout the series.

“As a result of the coronavirus pandemic we were unable to host the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series in 2020. We realise that this impacted heavily on the Sunshine Tour caddies across the country who rely on these tournaments to earn a living,” said William Mzimba, Vodacom Business Chief Officer.

“Since its inception in 2004, the Vodacom Origins of Golf series has been strongly aligned to the communities where the tournaments are played and supporting charities as well as golf development initiatives. It is for this reason that, in partnership with the Sunshine Tour and events rights holders FLOOID, we have made this donation to a sector of the golf industry that is critical to all of our enjoyment of this game.”

Thomas Abt, Commissioner of the Sunshine Tour, said: “The Sunshine Tour is blessed to have sponsors and partners of the calibre of Vodacom, a company that has always supported the Tour and the greater golf family in South Africa. This is an incredible contribution to our efforts to assist our caddies financially.”

Photo: Shaun Roy/Sunshine Tour

Erik van Rooyen claimed his first PGA Tour title when he won the Barracuda Championship in California on Sunday, and said he’d celebrate in typical South African fashion with “a Brandy and Coke”.

The South African finished with 50 points in the modified stableford scoring system used for this tournament to achieve what he said was the next step for him in his career.

“Obviously this was, in my mind, kind of the next step for what I wanted to achieve. I’ve got big dreams and aspirations, and winning on the PGA Tour was certainly part of that. I’m really, really happy.”

Van Rooyen is the third Sunshine Tour player to win on the PGA Tour this season. He is also the sixth consecutive first-time winner of the Barracuda Championship and set a record for the best winning score since the tournament changed to a modified stableford scoring system in 2012. He is also the first player since Major champion Collin Morikawa to win the tournament on his debut.

“It’s massive. It’s massive. It’s been a difficult sort of 18 months for me golf-wise. I haven’t been playing well. There’s been glimpses of it the last six months. But I haven’t been able to put four good rounds together. To win here under the conditions, you know, the pressure that I was under, I’m going to take so much confidence from this. I think it reiterates that patience is key. I was forcing things there for a long time. And ironically, with this game, when you do that, it kind of tends to go the other way. You have to let things happen and let things come to you.”

Van Rooyen joins Garrick Higgo and Branden Grace as winners on the PGA Tour this season. The last time three South Africans won in the same season on the PGA Tour was in 2010 with Tim Clark, Ernie Els and Louis Oosthuizen.

“Garrick has got such a bright future ahead of him. He’s played exceptional golf the last two years. And Louis obviously is someone I’ve always looked up to. And I played a lot of golf with him the last year or so. Ever since my wife and I moved back to the US we live nearby each other. Louis is so good on the golf course. And the way he handles himself, his calm demeanour, his patience, it’s really something I took away from him. We all know he’s a fantastic ball striker, but the way he handles himself, that’s something I wanted to copy. And it’s something I look up to.

“And I think as a whole we are quite motivated in general. Ernie, for me at least, was really the one that set the tone from a South African perspective. Obviously Gary Player and guys before him. But Ernie and Retief were really the eras that I look up to. And they set the tone for us and there’s so many great players coming through at the moment because of that.”

Van Rooyen also paid tribute to his wife Rose and daughter Valerie.

“My wife’s been my rock. She’s been absolutely amazing. And she’s been pretty much a single parent for three of the last four weeks, ever since we had Valerie. Her parents were with her when I was playing the British Open, but I’ve been gone three out of the four weeks. So, as I mentioned earlier, this goes out to my wife, Rose, and little Valerie.” – PGA Tour/Sunshine Tour.

Photo: Getty Images.

George Coetzee claimed a three-stroke victory in the opening tournament of the 2021 Vodacom Origins of Golf Series at De Zalze Golf Estate on Friday.

Coetzee closed with a 69 to win on 18 under par, with Jaco Ahlers and Tristen Strydom sharing second place on 15 under after their respective final rounds of 66 and 67.

The win is Coetzee’s fourth on the series since it teed off in 2004. He also becomes the first golfer in the history of the series to have won the Final of the previous season’s series, and then the very first tournament of the new season’s series. Coetzee won the 2019 Vodacom Origins of Golf Final, and the series was cancelled in 2020 before making its return to the Sunshine Tour this year.

With his four Vodacom Origins of Golf Series victories, Coetzee is now tied with Darren Fichardt in second place for the most number of wins on the series. Jean Hugo is first with his 11 titles on the series.

“I’m very happy. Vodacom has basically been a partner on the Sunshine Tour since I came on Tour. So they’ve been very supportive of my whole career in that sense. It’s always been a special relationship, and it’s nice to be able to win another title on the series,” said Coetzee.

Coetzee took a three-stroke lead into the final round and says he did his best just to focus on his own game and let the rest of the field try and catch him.

“I did my best to keep it simple and stay focused on my task at hand. It looks a lot easier than it is. But I felt comfortable this whole week and I think I managed it well.”

The win was also a timely one for Coetzee.

“I’m heading over to the European Tour for about a 10-week trip. It’s always nice to get a win on home soil before leaving.” – Michael Vlismas

Photo: Shaun Roy/Sunshine Tour