The Nedbank: The Penultimate Event of the European Tour Season
By Matt Coles
The Nedbank Golf Challenge takes place this week, with the penultimate event of the European Tour schedule being played in South Africa.
The Nedbank has been part of the Race to Dubai Final Series, and then Rolex Series, for the last three years, and it has the capabilities to completely change the leaderboard ahead of the DP World Tour Championship, the season finale in Dubai.
This year will be no different, with Bernd Wiesberger coming is as the No.1 on the Race to Dubai list. He holds a 400 point lead over his nearest competitor Jon Rahm, but the Spaniard will not feature at the Gary Player Country Club this week.
GPCC has been the location for the Nedbank Golf Challenge ever since its inception in 1981 when it was an unofficial event. It became a European Tour event in 2013, and since then six different men have lifted the title, including one of the home favourites, Branden Grace.
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Lee Westwood is the reigning champion, having won the tournament for the third time in 2018. Alex Noren, Marc Leishman, Danny Willett, and Thomas Bjorn are the other four previous winners.
The first three will all feature in Sun City this week, with Westwood aiming to become the first man to win this title four times, while all three will be looking to become the first multiple winners of the event since it landed on the European Tour calendar.
Westwood will be in the last group out on Day One, alongside Race to Dubai leader Bernd Wiesberger, and his nearest competitor featuring this week, No.4 Matthew Fitzpatrick.
No.7 Matt Wallace, No.8 Erik van Rooyen, and No.10 Tommy Fleetwood will all play together on the first day, as will the men sitting in 11-13 on the leaderboard. South African Louis Oosthuizen will be looking for a sixth European Tour victory on home soil, and she starts his week alongside Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre and Kurt Kitayama.
The action gets underway at 09:00 (GMT+2), with another of ProGolfNow’s featured groups, as former major winners Padraig Harrington and Ernie Els tee off alongside England’s Matthew Southgate.
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Selected Groups:
- 09:00: Padraig Harrington (IRL), Ernie Els (RSA), Matthew Southgate (ENG)
- 10:17: Branden Grace (RSA), Benjamin Hebert (FRA), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (RSA)
- 10:28: Louis Oosthuizen (RSA), Robert MacIntyre (SCO), Kurt Kitayama (USA)
- 10:39: Tommy Fleetwood (ENG), Matt Wallace (ENG), Erik van Rooyen (RSA)
- 10:50: Lee Westwood (ENG), Bernd Wiesberger (AUT), Matthew Fitzpatrick (ENG)