The Rising Strength of South Africa

Throughout golf’s history South Africans have played a prominent role, and few countries around the world have produced so many top-quality players over such a long and sustained period of time. Nowadays, the South African contingent is as strong as ever, with the Sunshine Tour thriving and more and more players making the transition, via a well-trodden path, to the European Tour and beyond. With golf expanding eastwards, many new talented Asians have started to make an impact, but, with the exception of the USA, no country is churning out as many stars as South Africa.

A brief History of South Africans

In the 1930s, Bobby Locke burst on to the scene, winning the South Africa Open as an amateur in 1935 and finishing as the low amateur, aged 16, at the 1936 Open Championship. He turned professional two years later and won the first of his 38 South Africa Tour titles in 1938. After service in at South Air Force during World War Two, he played a series of exhibition matches with Sam Snead, who subsequently suggested he should compete on the PGA Tour. In two and a half years on the PGA Tour, he won 11 tournaments and finished inside the top three on 30 occasions. He was banned in 1949, officially because of dispute over playing commitments but widely believed to be because of growing American resentment. In short, he was simply too good. The ban was lifted in 1951 but he didn’t return to the PGA Tour, and he went on to win four Open Championships between 1949 and 1957. 

As Locke was winning his fourth major, Gary Player was starting to make an impression. At the age of 16 he declared he would become the best player in the world, and 165 victories later, he retired from the professional game. He won nine major championships and six senior major championships, and was inducted into the world golf hall of fame in 1974. He is one of only five golfers – along with Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen – to have won every major championship in the modern era.

More recently, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen have flown the flag for South Africa. Goosen has been lacklustre of late, but the two-time US Open champion spent more than 250 weeks inside the world’s top ten between 2001 and 2007. He won the European Tour Order of Merit twice in the early noughties, and, at 44 years of age, he will still believe he can win several more tournaments after returning from an injury that kept him out for much of 2012.

 Els has undoubtedly been the most prolific south African of the modern generation. Since turning professional in 1989, he has notched more than 65 worldwide victories and been a true, peripatetic ambassador for the game. His 2012 Open Championship victory was his fourth major title, and he holds the European Tour record for most wins at one event – the World Matchplay at Wentworth. He was the first player to earn more than 25m Euros from European events, and, until being caught by Lee Westwood in 2011, he was the all time highest earner on the European Tour.

Sunshine Tour and South African strength

The aforementioned golfers also share a common trait: all their careers started on the Sunshine Tour, or its contemporary equivalent. Nowadays, the South African circuit is brimming with talent, and has rightly earned a reputation as one of the best feeder tours in the world. Each season, more and more players progress through the Sunshine Tour, and the European Tour simply wouldn’t co- sanction events with its African counterpart if it didn’t think the overall standard was high enough to create a spectacle.

As it stands, there are 16 South Africans inside the world’s top 200, four more than players from Australia and New Zealand. What’s more, there are a series of youngsters just outside that mark who look poised to surge through the rankings. Every time the European Tour stages an event in South Africa, the wealth of talent and high standard of golf is evident to everyone watching. Players like Jaco Ahlers, Oliver Bekker and Trevor Fisher Jnr are growing in stature and confidence every tournament, and with the European Tour staging more tournaments in South Africa every season, this trend will continue. The strong relationship between the Sunshine and European Tours means so many opportunities are present for these young players.

The future

Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and George Coetzee are three names that will provide all the inspiration these golfers need. Much like their idols, all these players started out on the Sunshine Tour. Indeed, Schwartzel won the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit four times between 2004 and 2010, Oosthuizen has notched seven career victories and Coetzee - widely regarded as one of the best young golfers in the world – won four tournaments between 2007 and 2011. Schwartzel and Oouthuizen are indisputably two of the best golfers in the world – an assertion supported by their respective world rankings of five and 13 – and if they don’t collect at least five more majors between them, it’ll be considered a surprise. Granted, latent natural talent comes into play, but many will draw parallels between their own careers and those of the aforementioned and believe they can go on to greatness.  

With the Sunshine Tour going from strength to strength, the European Tour staging more and more events in South Africa and young players growing in self belief ever week, the future looks extremely bright for South African golf. There are six South Africans – including Branden Grace, a man who grows in worldwide prominence every week – in the world’s top 50, and so many more waiting in the wings. Many believe that by 2020, at least half of the top 10 golfers in the world will be Asian. That viewpoint has some merit, but one thing’s for sure: South African prospects look equally as promising.  

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