Alfred Dunhill Championship

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It has only been a few days since Jon Rahm was crowned the Champion Golfer on the European Tour and we already have the start of the race for the next season’s champion. In truth, only three players in this week’s field played in Dubai, so the gap between the old and the new season is more palpable for most players on view this week.

That is not to say that most players were only practising last week – 43 players competed in the six-day European Tour Qualifying School in Spain which ended on Wednesday last week. There was little time to celebrate a new or renewed Tour Card with the new season starting so soon and so far away.

In truth, most Q-School qualifiers head to the Hong Kong Open when that is the start-of-season double-header as the European Tour opens its new season in the Southern Hemisphere. Last week’s postponement of that event means that there is only one co-sanctioned event on the European Tour this week, though it is not clear how many players, if any, cancelled their flights and hotels in Hong Kong to come to this event.

Those that have come to this event are treated to a course that is both tough and beautiful. There have been some runaway winners in recent years, but otherwise this event tends to have some of the higher winning scores on the European Tour. The Gary Player-designed course also incorporates many of the local natural features into the course – quite a contrast from last week’s event in Dubai – and there is plenty of wildlife on view.

The course underwent a major renovation in 2017 with the gnarly Kikuya rough (and fairways) replaced with Bermuda grass which enables the fairways to be faster running. The Creeping Bentgrass greens have also been replaced with Champion G-12 Bermuda grass.

As a result, there was no event held in 2017. With only the 2018 event, there is insufficient evidence on which to base any judgements that the course changes have had on the profile of winners here. However, this course has hosted this event for 14 years and the Southern Africa Tour Championship for four years before that, so there is plenty of course history to look at more general trends.

Angles to consider:

1. Course form is very important at Leopard Creek

Last year’s event can be discounted to some degree because of the course changes and it remains to be seen if a player like David Lipsky will win this year. However, the strongest trend in the sixteen events beforehand related to course form. Charl Schwartzel is the best example of this – when he won in 2015, it was the eighth time in his last 12 attempts that he had finished 1^st or 2^nd on the course. The three other players to win here since 2011 had all secured a top-20 finish on this course in the previous two years and Pablo Martin Benavides won back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010.

2. South Africans play well here

Again, setting aside last year’s American winner, the previous seven Alfred Dunhill Championships had been won by a South African. In every other Alfred Dunhill Championship since the inaugural event in 2004, if the event was not won by a South African, there was a South African in 2^nd place. Admittedly, this may have been due to the kikuyu rough, particularly around the greens, so local knowledge of that grass would have been an advantage, but just one year without that grass is not enough to discount this angle just yet.

3. Don’t travel to this event

This event is always played at the start of the European Tour season, either as the first event – in which some players will have competed in the DP World Tour Championship or the Qualifying Tournament the previous week – or as the second or third event of the season. That means that in most seasons, as this year, a very large proportion of the European Tour players will have played the previous week in another continent. However, since the inaugural event in 2004 only one winner – Charl Schwartzel – has played in an event in a different country the week before winning here. Every other winner either didn’t play the week beforehand or competed in a Southern Africa Tour event.

Selections

The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following players have been selected.

George Coetzee

The first of a triumvirate of South Africa selections is Coetzee who has two top-10 finishes in this event. He competed in two of the final three Rolex Series on the European Tour, but not last week’s DP World Tour Championship so he is rested, plus he returned to South Africa at the start of this month and won the Vodacom Origins – Final. That means that his form is good and he clearly fits the profile for winning here.

Dean Burmester

Burmester is another big-hitting South Africa who has a good record here, finishing inside the top-20 in two of the last three Alfred Dunhill Championships. Like Coetzee, he is also well-rested but showed good form to finish inside the top-15 in the Portugal Masters in his last outing.

Thomas Aiken

Aiken is a very different type of player – not long off the tee, but ranking inside the top-20 on the European Tour for strokes gained – approach the green and strokes gained – around the green. But he is like the other players in that he has a good record here with three top-5 finishes. Like Burmester, he hasn’t played since finishing 31^st in the Portugal Masters, but his record in his home country is very impressive and he should perform much better this week.

Tips  0-3; -6.00pts

1pts e.w. George Coetzee 18/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8)  24th

1pt e.w. Dean Burmester 33/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8)  mc

1pt e.w. Thomas Aiken 80/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8)  33rd