Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)
When Christmas finally gets done and dusted, and “Auld Lang Syne” inevitably gets replaced with “The Same Old Grind”, January often ends up being on the receiving end of some pretty vicious sideways glances from those disgruntled amongst us who actually enjoy the festive period – I know, madness.
If you happen to be into golf, however, whilst the first month of the new year can, undoubtedly, still wind up being something of a slog, these four weeks, on the whole, provide more reasons for us to be happy as opposed to the contrary. The days are going to be getting longer from now on, which means more potential time for us to get absolutely furious with ourselves for slicing yet another tee-shot into the trees. The weather is going to be improving (or, at least, should be improving) which means when we launch search and rescue missions for golf balls in ankle deep rough our socks won’t get as wet as they might between October and December – a period of time otherwise now known as “Hallowistmas”. And it also means we’ve got a full season of all the biggest tournaments, Majors and, this particular January, a Ryder Cup to look forward to balming out on our respective couches and watching all the way through until next November when the ‘Race to Dubai’ once again reaches its conclusion in the familiar, sun-drenched surrounds of the Earth Course.
As is the way with most races, however, you can’t cross the finish line without first leaving the starting blocks, and so enters this week’s South African Open. Now, obviously, this season has already technically started, what with the Alfred Dunhill Championship, Mauritius Open and Australian PGA all being decided before Christmas, but there’s just something about the first event of a brand new year that makes everything feel that hair more official – kinda like when you first go into secondary school and all the older years finally start back after you and the rest of the terrified first years have had the school to yourselves for a week to try and get suitably acclimated to the sobering reality that, yes, you are now in secondary school for six … long … years.
I didn’t do well in first year.
Of course, regardless of the fact that this week’s action may well be the first official European event of 2020, for many of the more established members of the tour, next week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship – the first of this year’s Rolex Series events – is where they’re choosing to make their first appearance back inside the ropes since all-but-going into hibernation after the DP World Tour Championship, and that’s perfectly fine – you’d expect it. That being said, though, when you actually scan your way down through the field that is going to be teeing it up down in Johannesburg, it doesn’t take long to cop that there are more than enough quality golfers to make this week’s action worth keeping an eye on.
As is nearly always the case with any of the top African events, their best players always show up ready to play and this week is no exception, with Louis Oosthuizen, Erik Van Rooyen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Branden Grace, Brandon Stone, Charl Schwartzel and the man with the broadest shoulders on tour, Zander Lombard, being just some of the more notable names amongst the large contingent of African golfers attempting to win their National Open and a share of the 17,500,000 ZAR (roughly €1,100,000) purse.
After their impressive debuts in the professional ranks last year, a lot of eyes, naturally, will be drawn to the eighteen year old identical Højgaard twins, Rasmus and Nicolai, to see if the two Danes can continue to show more signs of the extraordinary potential they obviously possess after Nicolai finished solo runner-up to Sergio Garcia at last year’s KLM Open and Rasmus, of course, secured the Mauritius Open after an impressive playoff victory over Renato Paratore and Antoine Rozner just before Christmas.
Nine of the fifteen graduates from last season’s Challenge Tour rankings, along with twenty of the twenty-eight qualifiers from Q-School will be in the field; with each of those groups’ respective number one players teeing it up in Francesco Laporta and Benjamin Poke.
And, finally, three potential ‘wildcards’ to keep an eye out for this week are two teammates from last year’s Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup team in Dubliner, Conor Purcell, and Englishman, Harry Hall; along with nineteen year old South African, Wilco Nienaber, who just failed to get out of Q-School back in November when he finished a mere four places away from the qualifying spots – all three of them extremely talented young golfers who’ll be looking to make the most of their starts in Johannesburg to pocket a nice bit of cash, along with some invaluable experience.
As for possible predictions? Well, generally, I don’t really do the whole “predictions” business as I think golf is just far too fickle a game to try and predict who might do what in a given week as you’re only ever one back muscle locking up or a nasty slip down some stairs (yes, Dustin, I’m looking at you) away from said predictions going straight into the bin.
But if I had to, after taking a look at the layout of the two courses they’ll be playing at Randpark – both of which are parkland courses where accuracy off the tee and an ability to shape the ball will serve you well – and taking into account the possible impact of the altitude difference presented by playing up on the Highveld, I’d expect the defending champion from last year, Louis Oosthuizen, to be right in the mix again come Sunday – and especially so if he can recapture the form he had in the Australian Open and Presidents Cup.
I think Charl Schwartzel could contend in Johannesburg. He finished T-3 when Louis won last year at the same venue, but never really fired a shot on the final day, finishing with a +1 round that eventually saw him end the day lying eight shots back of Oosthuizen. The biggest question mark over Charl, of course, will be how his wrist holds up (he injured it in 2019 & missed a large majority of the year as a result), but if his T-3 finish at the Alfred Dunhill Championship back in November is anything to go by, the 2011 Masters Champion and 7-time winner in Africa could well be a significant threat.
And, lastly, though he missed the cut at last year’s edition, I think Challenge Tour graduate, Connor Syme, could be one to watch for a good showing around Randpark. Since making the jump from the Challenge Tour (wherein he won the Turkish Airlines Challenge back in April), the long-hitting Scotsman has posted two great finishes in the pair of events that he’s played in so far (a T-11 at the Alfred Dunhill Championship & a T-9 at the Mauritius Open) and done so thanks to incredibly accurate driving (9th in the rankings), hitting a lot of greens (4th in the rankings) and converting the chances created by those two facets of his game into a healthy stroke average of 69.75 (14th in the rankings). So if he can manage to maintain those high standards that he set before Christmas – and perhaps up the temperature of his putter – Connor might well end up giving himself a belated Christmas present come Sunday afternoon.
Of course, in reality, it’s just as plausible that all three of those golfers miss the cut and some unknown amateur walks away with the trophy because, again, golf is hard to predict. What you don’t need to be an oracle to predict, however, is that we’re in for a cracker of a season and the South African Open is a dinger of a tournament to kick it all off.