Fancourt was bathed in sunshine on Wednesday as the Dimension Data Pro-Am welcomed a stellar field of professionals and amateurs for this week’s tournament.
The 2022 edition of this historic tournament – which has been won by stars of the game such as Mark McNulty, Nick Price, Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman, Louis Oosthuizen, Branden Grace and Christiaan Bezuidenhout – has drawn a world-class field of sports stars that will compete alongside the finest young professionals on the Sunshine Tour and Challenge Tour from Thursday to Sunday.
Springbok rugby’s finest in Francois Pienaar, John Smit, Schalk Brits, Schalk Burger Snr and Schalk Burger Jnr, Jean de Villiers, Odwa Ndungane and Nick Mallett are joined by cricket greats Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith as well as Bafana Bafana icon Jimmy Tau as among the glittering array of amateurs in the field.
So much so that this is one of those rare weeks on the golf calendar when the professionals are the ones who are a little starstruck by their playing partners.
“You can definitely get quite starstruck here with all the sports stars,” said Sunshine Tour professional Anton Haig. “It’s always a great week to spend with them catching up. It was two years ago that I was paired with Francois Pienaar and we had such a great time together.
“You really can’t get a more beautiful place in the world to play golf. Dimension Data and all the sponsors always put on a great show this week in what is also an important week for us in terms of some good world-ranking points on offer. I’m taking up membership of the Challenge Tour, so this starts an important run of Challenge Tour events on the Sunshine Tour for me.”
Fellow Sunshine Tour professional Trevor Fisher Jnr was equally excited about the week to come.
“It’s one of the best weeks we have on the Sunshine Tour. The golf courses are always great and the setting we have here is world class. It’s also great fun with the amateurs. I’ll take Jacques Kallis this year for sure – he’s quite handy off his handicap.”
