|
The Sunshine Tour is a men's professional golf tour based in Southern Africa. For much of its history it was known either as the South African Tour or the FNB Tour, but it rebranded itself in an attempt to broaden its appeal. A large majority of the tour events are still staged in South Africa.
The tour is one of the six leading men's tours which make up the International Federation of PGA Tours, but it offers much less prize money than some of the leading tours, and leading Southern African golfers always prefer to play on the PGA Tour or the European Tour if they can qualify to do so, typically returning to play in Sunshine Tour events a couple of times a year.
The tour's three leading official money events, the South African Open, the Alfred Dunhill Championship, and the Joburg Open are co-sanctioned with the European Tour in order to attract stronger fields. Each season is scheduled across two calendar years and concludes with a tour championship in late February. The 2005/06 season included 21 official money events. The South African Open and the Dunhill Championship had purses of €1 million each and the other 19 had purses designated in South African Rand and ranging from 250,000 rand to 2 million rand. The tour also co-sanctions the US$5 million HSBC Champions Tournament in China, but it is not an official money event.
There was at least one tournament every month of the year except July, but the main events took place in the South African summer from November to February. There are separate qualifying schools in March and in late October/early November, effectively dividing the tour into two series of events. The March to October series is a developmental program for emerging, mainly local, players, held when all the leading Southern African players are plying their trade in other parts of the world. The November to February series attracts almost all the top South Africans, even if only for one or two events, and also some good quality international players.
The tour has been open to non-White players since 1991. The first three Black winners were John Mashego at the 1991 Bushveld Classic, Lindani Ndwandwe at the 2001 Western Cape Classic and Tongoona Charamba at the 2006 SAA Pro-Am Invitational.[1]
The richest golf tournament in South Africa is the Nedbank Golf Challenge, an unofficial money but Sunshine Tour-recognized tournament.
Schedule
The table below shows schedule of events for the 2009 Sunshine Tour. The tour consists of two distinct parts, commonly referred to as the "Summer Swing" and "Winter Swing". Tournaments held during the Summer Swing generally have much higher prize funds, attract stronger fields, and are the only tournaments on the tour to carry world ranking points. The Winter Swing runs from March to November, dividing the Summer Swing in two.
Prize funds shown do not count directly towards the Order of Merit. For a complete list of Sunshine Tour sanctioned events see the official site. The richest events on the tour, are again those that are co-sanctioned with the European Tour, with the Africa Open, in its second year, having the biggest prize fund of the remaining tournaments.
The number in brackets after each winner's name is the number of official money Sunshine Tour events he had won up to and including that tournament. This information is only shown for Sunshine Tour members.
| Dates | Tournament | Venue (RSA unless stated) |
Prize fund | Winner | OWGR points | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8-11 Jan | Joburg Open | Royal Johannesburg and Kensington GC | €1,100,000 |  Anders Hansen (1) |
20 | Co-sanctioned by the European Tour |
| 15-18 Jan | Africa Open | East London GC | R5,000,000 |  Retief Goosen (9) |
18 | |
| 22-25 Jan | Dimension Data Pro-Am | Gary Player CC and Lost City GC, Sun City | R1,800,000 | Deane Pappas (2) |
14 | |
| 29 Jan - 1 Feb | Nashua Masters | Wild Coast Sun CC | R1,200,000 | Darren Fichardt (7) |
14 | |
| 12-15 Feb | Vodacom Championship | Pretoria CC | R2,650,000 | Anders Hansen (2) |
14 | |
| 19-22 Feb | Telkom PGA Championship | The Country Club, Johannesburg | R2,750,000 | Jaco van Zyl (3) |
14 | |
| 1-3 Apr | Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour | Bloemfontein GC | R480,000 | Trevor Fisher Jnr (4) |
||
| 30 Apr - 2 May | SAA Pro-Am Invitational | Mount Edgecombe GC | R500,000 |  Adilson da Silva (5) |
||
| 6-9 May | Samsung Royal Swazi Sun Open | Royal Swazi GC, Swaziland | R750,000 | Jaco van Zyl (4) |
||
| 14-16 May | Nashua Golf Challenge | Gary Player CC and Lost City GC, Sun City | R500,000 | Doug McGuigan (4) |
||
| 20-22 May | Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour | Pretoria CC | R480,000 | Brandon Pieters (1) |
||
| 5-7 Jun | Lombard Insurance Classic | Royal Swazi GC, Swaziland | R500,000 | Peter Karmis (2) |
||
| 24-25 Jun | Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour | Fancourt | R480,000 | Brandon Pieters (2) |
||
| 6-8 Aug | Suncoast Classic | Durban CC | R500,000 | Louis de Jager (1) |
||
| 12-14 Aug | Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour | Erinvale Golf Estate | R480,000 | Jaco Ahlers (1) |
||
| 19-21 Aug | Telkom PGA Pro-Am | Centurion CC | R450,000 | Jaco van Zyl (5) |
||
| 28-30 Aug | Zambia Open | Lusaka, Zambia | R800,000 | Jbe' Kruger (1) |
Tournament postponed from it's original date in March.[2][3] | |
| 3-5 Sept | SAA Pro-Am Invitational | Randpark GC | R500,000 | Ryan Tipping (1) |
||
| 16-18 Sept | Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour | Selborne Hotel Spa and Golf Estate | R480,000 | Darren Fichardt (8) |
||
| 1-3 Oct | SAA Pro-Am Invitational | Paarl GC | R500,000 | Prinavin Nelson (1) |
||
| 7-9 Oct | Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour Final | Simola Golf Estate | R480,000 | Brandon Pieters (3) |
||
| 16-18 Oct | BMG Classic | Ebotse GC, Johannesburg | R500,000 |  Graham DeLaet (1) |
||
| 23-25 Oct | Highveld Classic | Witbank GC | R600,000 | Lindani Ndwandwe (2) |
||
| 29-31 Oct | Platinum Classic | Mooinooi GC | R705,000 | Darren Fichardt (9) |
||
| 12-15 Nov | MTC Namibia PGA Championship | Windhoek Country Club, Namibia | R1,000,000 | Hennie Otto (8) |
14 | |
| 24-26 Nov | Coca-Cola Charity Championship | The Outeniqua, Fancourt | R550,000 | Christiaan Basson (1) |
||
| 30 Nov - 2 Dec | Nedbank Affinity Cup | Lost City GC, Sun City | R550,000 | Jake Roos (2) |
||
| 3-6 Dec | Nedbank Golf Challenge | Gary Player CC, Sun City | $4,385,000 | |||
| 10-13 Dec | Alfred Dunhill Championship | Leopard Creek CC | TBC | Co-sanctioned by the European Tour | ||
| 17-20 Dec | South African Open | Pearl Valley Golf Estates | TBC | Co-sanctioned by the European Tour |
Order of Merit winners
The Order of Merit winners are shown below. Players are required to play in a minimum number of tournaments to qualify for the Order of Merit. As the richest events on the tour (those co-sanctioned by the European Tour) tend to be won by players who don't play enough events to qualify, in recent years the Order of Merit winner has often not actually been the player who won most money in Sunshine Tour sanctioned events.
- This list is incomplete.
References
- ^ "Charamba rewrites history at SAA Pro-Am Invitational". Sunshine Tour. 22 May 2006. http://www.pgatour.co.za/default.asp?AID=179665. Retrieved 2009-12-01.
- ^ "Zambia Open Golf Championship Postponed". Lusaka Times. 10 March 2009. http://www.lusakatimes.com/?p=9274. Retrieved 2009-03-28.
- ^ "Zambia Open back on Sunshine Tour calendar". Sunshine Tour. 23 July 2009. http://www.sunshinetour.com/default.asp?AId=309051. Retrieved 2009-12-01.
See also
External links
|
|||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
