Thriston Lawrence will lead a strong South African challenge at next week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the DP World Tour, with the South African heading to Scotland having just broken into the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking. MICHAEL VLISMAS reports.
Lawrence will tee it up in this festival of links golf as clearly South Africa’s most in-form golfer at the moment following his recent playoff defeat in the BMW PGA Championship. It was his fifth runners-up finish on the DP World Tour this year and he is currently in second place on the Race to Dubai rankings.
Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace will also form part of the South African challenge in Scotland, with both golfers sharing a strong personal connection to this tournament.
Grace, although struggling with his form at the moment, heads back to a tournament where he has the distinction of being the only South African to have ever won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in 2012, when he also became the youngest winner of this tournament at the age of 24.
Grace is also the only golfer to have ever won both this event and its sister tournament, the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa in 2014.
Oosthuizen heads into next week’s tournament with a chance to match Grace’s Alfred Dunhill double, as the reigning champion of the Alfred Dunhill Championship.
A total of 34 South Africans are on the current list of entries for this celebration of links golf, played on the three links courses of the Old Course, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie.
The South African contingent also includes last season’s Sunshine Tour Order of Merit winner Ryan van Velzen, as well as Robin Williams, Louis Albertse, Darren Fichardt, Rupert Kaminski, Jayden Schaper, Jacques P de Villiers, Jacques Kruyswijk, Kyle Barker, Nikhil Rama, Dylan Frittelli, Dean Burmester, Barend Botha, Justin Walters, Louis de Jager, George Coetzee, Justin Harding, MJ Daffue, Casey Jarvis, Brandon Stone, Pieter Moolman, Oliver Bekker, Dylan Mostert, Deon Germishuys, JJ Senekal, Wilco Nienaber, JC Ritchie, Bryce Easton, Thomas Aiken, Albert Venter and Jaco Prinsloo.
The tournament tees off next Thursday, and this year’s field already includes defending champion Matt Fitzpatrick and other stars such as Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre, Tyrrell Hatton, Danny Willett and Billy Horschel.
The popular pro-am tournament will this year also feature celebrities and sports stars such as Schalk Burger Jnr, Morné du Plessis, Rob Louw, Kelly Slater, Bill Murray, Andy Garcia, Huey Lewis, Ruud Gullit, Gareth Bale, Kathryn Newton and Kevin Pietersen.
Photo: Tyrone Winfield/Sunshine Tour
