The 2017 European Tour season gets under way just two weeks after Henrik Stenson claimed his second Race to Dubai title with a ninth-placed finish which proved enough to see off his nearest challenger Danny Willett.
There are two co-sanctioned events on the European Tour this week; the Australian PGA and the one we are interested in – the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa which returns to Leopard Creek, on the edge of the Kruger National Park, for the 13th year in a row.
The worthy favourite is defending champion Charl Schwartzel, who has five titles and three runners-up spots to his name from the 11 times he has played this tournament. Incredible statistics like these cannot be ignored, but throw into the equation that the South African finished third at the DP World Tour Championship and what seems like a skinny 33/10 starts to look like a good thing.
Charl Schwartzel on his way to victory in 2015
Gregory Bourdy also has a tremendous record at this spectacular course, finishing second and third on the last two occasions he teed up here and missing just one cut since April last season. The Frenchman is 18/1 to win his first tournament in more than three years.
South Africans have won this event for the last five years, so it would be hard to ignore the claims of George Coetzee, whose game is definitely improving and at 20/1 is decent value to go better than 10th and third in 2012 and 2011 respectively. The only negative is that Coetzee played at the World Cup of Golf in Australia, so jet lag could be a factor.
Dean Burmester is another native who performed well last year despite four successive missed cuts from 2010 and he finished eighth at the Cape Town Open last week. With figures of 11-10-31-4 in his four home tournaments at the start of the 2016 season, 50/1 is an enticing price for a player that performs well in South Africa, or he can be backed at 9/2 for a top-10 finish.
This week’s recommendations are completed by Brandon Stone, a young talent who has the game to go all the way. The 23-year-old from Pretoria made it to Dubai and already has a win in South Africa at last year’s BMW SA Open. Stone was fourth in last week’s Cape Town Open on the Sunshine Tour and should go well again at 25/1.
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