The Sun City course has been toughed up for this year’s Million Dollar
Michael Vlismas, MWP
Alastair Roper, tournament director of the Nedbank Golf Challenge, slumped into his chair at the halfway house of the Gary Player Country Club on a steamy Wednesday afternoon earlier this month.
“This is murder,” he said after his nine holes in the traditional final round before the course is closed for the 12-man showpiece. “I can tell you one thing, there’s no way the winner will get to 25-under par this year.”
Halfway across the world, Ernie Els would have been oblivious to Roper’s conviction that his record winning score in 1999 would not be repeated when he returns hunting an unprecedented hat-trick in the tournament from November 29 to December 2.
Roper has predicted a victory mark closer to 16-under par following the recent upgrades on the Gary Player course, designed to make it even more difficult for the professionals.
But Els fresh from his World Cup victory with Retief Goosen is said to be excited by the changes, which include lengthening the course by about 200m by pushing back 10 of the tees, and increased bunkering.
Nick Price, a three-time winner and himself responsible for a record winning total of 24-under par 264 in 1993, fears he may no longer be able to keep the eye of this grand lady as she reinvents herself to keep abreast of the modern game.
Every year the event has two distinguishing talking points, the course and the field. The upgrades were as essential as the increase in prize money, and as for the other 10 of the world’s best golfers, 16-under par seems just fine if it means banking a winner’s cheque of $2-million.
“We’ve got to upgrade our bunkers,” Player said at last year’s tournament. “We need more rough. We used to play this tournament with substantial rough. We need fairways 40 yards wide with rough on the sides. Play the tournament off the back tees and start a brand new concept with this course.”
His words were heeded, and the changes are designed to encourage more exciting golf such as forcing players to use the driver more than they have in the past.
“The nature of this tournament is that the public come to see the golfers drive for show, and we want to give them that,” said Roper.
This attitude is no better illustrated than at the first hole, a relatively tame par four that now features a fairway bunker on the left, there to convince the field to take out the driver from the start.
Other new bunkers have been placed in so-called “bale out” zones around greens, again with the aim of ensuring the adrenaline keeps flowing throughout the event.
Some of the tees have been pushed back by as much as 20m, with even the eighth, traditionally the most difficult hole, being lengthened.
The course also has a far more settled feel than last year, when the new greens seemed to be hanging on by their teeth in the rush to get them ready for the tournament. The layout comfortably ingested more than 3 000 rounds in the month before the closing of the course.
The field is one of the more impressive in the 20-year history of the event, made even more so by the fact that many sportsmen now refuse to travel by air. The terrorist threat did convince PGA champion David Toms to withdraw, with 1985 winner Bernhard Langer taking his place. The likeable German has enjoyed a remarkable year, surging back into the top 20 in the world.
But the most anticipated inclusion in the field is Goosen. Goosen’s exclusion from previous Million Dollars on the basis that his world ranking was not good enough caused an outcry among South African golf fans.
But Roper was the first to admit that nothing gave him more pleasure than handing the gilded invitation to Goosen on the back of a remarkable year for the man from Pietersburg.
Goosen emerged from the shadow of Els and on to the greatest stage in golf when he claimed his first major with victory in the United States Open. The confidence of that triumph led to his becoming the first South African since Dale Hayes in 1975 to finish top of the European Tour’s Order of Merit this season.
Lee Westwood’s form during a year in which he celebrated the birth of his son, Samuel, fell far short of the Englishman’s talent. But his record at Sun City marks him as a threat.
Colin Montgomerie needs no introduction to an event he won in 1996 and finished second in in 1999. Darren Clarke has also won at Sun City before in this year’s Dimension Data Pro-Am, ironically beating Goosen.
Jim Furyk has gone from ninth to fifth in his two previous appearances, while Thomas Bjorn’s debut last year featured a joint third-place finish with Price. Spain’s Sergio Garcia is back and hopefully more mature than when he threw tantrums about what he believed to be the inferior state of the bunkers in 1999.
Padraig Harrington and Mike Weir both enjoyed late victories on the European Tour (Volvo Masters) and PGA Tour (Tour Championship) respectively to boost their status.
Whether any of them can take up Roper’s challenge of anything better than 16-under remains to be seen.
One of the caddies at the Gary Player Country Club, has no doubt who is the most able to do so.
Carrying my bag during that Wednesday round, he took one look at the golf ball nestled in the thick kikuyu rough on the 10th hole and removed a seven iron.
I shook my head and asked for a four iron. The caddie never budged, again offering the seven iron. “There’s only one golfer who can get out of this rough, and that’s Ernie,” he said.