Featuring at the Summer Olympic Games for just the second time since 1904, the Men’s Olympic Golf Tournament takes centre stage on Thursday, 29 July at the Kasumigaseki Country Club, on the outskirts of Tokyo.
The top 15 in the Official World Golf Rankings automatically qualify (with a limit of four per country), followed by the highest-ranked players from countries that had not yet already qualified two players. South Africa will be represented by the exciting young duo of Garrick Higgo and Christiaan Bezuidenhout.
With each South African bagging multiple victories within the last twelve months on the European Tour and the PGA Tour, both Higgo and Bezuidenhout certainly have the pedigree to challenge for the golf medal.
Higgo, winner of the European Tour’s Gran Canaria Lopesan Open and Canary Islands Championship and most recently, the Palmetto Championship in his first non-Major start on the PGA Tour, will tee off as the 17th highest-ranked player in the field of 60. After missed cuts at both the US Open and The Open Championship, the Olympics provide Higgo with the ideal opportunity to win South Africa’s first medal in the men’s golf competition.
Bezuidenhout, on the other hand, has been consistent but not quite at the top of his game of late. In his most recent 10 tour starts, he has made every cut without finishing any better than T23. Bezuidenhout will be looking to rekindle the form that had him stroll to victory at the end of 2020, winning back-to-back co-sanctioned tournaments at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the South African Open.
Kasumigaseki’s East Course will play 7,447 yards for the men, and Thursday tee times for the two South Africans are as follows:
1:14am – Xander Schauffele, Abraham Ancer, Christiaan Bezuidenhout
3:14am – Viktor Hovland, Cameron Smith, Garrick Higgo
