Golf Digest South Africa — January 2018

Player WR* 2017 2016 2015 2013

Branden Grace 30 DNP T-4 T-15 DNP

Charl Schwartzel 33 DNP DNP 2 T-4

Dylan Frittelli 67 MC T-18 MC DNP

Dean Burmester 134 4 T-10 66 MC

Richard Sterne 136 DNP T-32 T-20 DNP

George Coetzee 140 MC MC MC DNP

Brandon Stone 164 T-31 1 DNP MC

38 / JANUARY 2018 / GOLFDIGEST.CO.ZA

BrandenGrace,withcaddieZackRasego

and the Nedbank Challenge trophy.

I

t will be hard to match last year’s

BMW SA Open, when large crowds

and millions of TV viewers were

treated to a pandemonious week of

Rory McIlroy going full throttle around

Glendower, but the 107th Open Cham-

pionship at the same Johannesburg venue

from January 11 to 14 does feature one of

the strongest local casts for several years.

Glendower stages its fifth successive

Open, a record for any one club, and it

has proved a wonderful host alongside the

City of Ekurhuleni, which has backed the

championship since 2011, when it first

went to Serengeti. 

The SA Open belongs to the

country’s premier courses, and they don’t

come much more challenging than Glen-

dower. It is not an atypical South African

layout, its setup and design resembling more

an American PGA Tour venue, and perhaps

that’s why foreign players have won five of

the seven Opens played at Glendower.

Twice we have had playoffs in the

last four Opens there, and each time the

outcome has only been decided over the

closing holes. The long par-3 17th (203

metres) is often a pivotal hole, with its

narrow green.

A bogey there by McIlroy last year

ultimately cost him the title, and it was

also Charl Schwartzel’s undoing in 2015

when, like McIlroy, he ended up losing in a

playoff, to Andy Sullivan, who closed with

a 67 to Schwartzel’s 74. Brandon Stone, the

only South African winner at Glendower in

this recent stretch, overcame a bumpy last

round to win by two shots from Chris-

tiaan Bezuidenhout, and there was similar

Sunday drama in 2013 when Hennie Otto

let slip a three-shot lead with four holes

to play, losing a possible second Open title

to the Dane Morten Madsen. Otto played

15 to 18 in three-over-par, and Madsen

conquered them in two-under.

That particular Open was played in

November, and saw the lowest winning

total at Glendower of 19-under 269. The

course is a different proposition in January,

with the rough having grown thicker, and

scores have generally been higher.

Ernie Els will again act as host of the

R15-million championship, and while

there are no international stars in the field,

his presence has attracted both Branden

Grace and Schwartzel, who have made

intermittent Open appearances in recent

years, and have yet to win the trophy. Grace

was T-4 in the Open won by Stone. That’s

his highest finish in the championship.

Schwartzel has been close on more

than one occasion, and losing in 2015

will have hurt immensely. That was his

last Open appearance.

Could Grace achieve the rare

back-to-back double of winning the

Nedbank Challenge and SA Open and

holding both trophies at the same time?

It’s something that hasn’t been done

before, not by Els or Retief Goosen.

Also confirmed in the field for

Glendower are Goosen, Stone, Dylan

Frittelli – now the fourth best South

African on the World Ranking – Dean

Burmester, Haydn Porteous and George

Coetzee. Coetzee was runner-up at

Serengeti in the 2012 SA Open, but has

missed the cut in the last three Opens

at Glendower. A dark horse among the

locals could be Trevor Fisher, who has

finished three times in the top-10 at

Glendower.

And the Englishman who upset

McIlroy last year, Graeme Storm, will be

back to defend the title.

The SA Open is the first tournament

of 2018 on the European Tour, but

unfortunately it does clash with the

EurAsia Cup match in Malaysia between

teams from Europe and Asia. The Europe-

ans playing there are Rafa Cabrera-Bello,

Paul Casey, Paul Dunne, Ross Fisher,

Matthew Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood,

Tyrrell Hatton, Alex Levy, Alex Noren,

Thomas Pieters, Henrik Stenson and

Bernd Wiesberger.

NEW SOUTH AFRICAN DUO ON EUROPEAN TOUR

Jacques Kruyswijk (left) and Christiaan Bezuidenhout will tee up in the SA Open as fully-fledged European Tour

players, having earned their cards at the Q School Finals in Spain. The top 25 and ties earned cards. Kruyswijk, 25, winner of the

2016 Cape Town Open, finished second on 19-under, and Bezuidenhout, 23, runner-up in the 2016 SA Open at Glendower, took

one of the last cards at T-25 on 13-under along with Justin Walters, who retains his status. Kruyswijk won the second stage of

qualifying, shooting a course record 61 at Los Colinas.

15 PLAYERS / GLENDOWER FORM BOOK *World Ranking at 27 Nov

WINNING OPEN SCORES AT GLENDOWER

2017    270    Graeme Storm • 2016    274    Brandon Stone • 2015    277    Andy Sullivan • 2013    269    Morten Madsen

1997    270     Vijay Singh • 1993    279     Clinton Whitelaw • 1989    278    Fred Wadsworth

Haydn Porteous         175      MC      MC      DNP     DNP

Erik van Rooyen        192      MC      T-18     T-33     DNP

Darren Fichardt          194      T-26     MC      MC      T-37

Jaco van Zyl                212      T-18     T-18     T-55     T-12

Jbe Kruger                  248      T-21     45        61        2

Thomas Aiken            276      T-5       DNP     T-5       T-7

Trevor Fisher               401      T-5       T-8       T-15     T-7

Ernie Els                      557      MC      MC      T -20     DNP