have been major champions. This year the star turn in the field is Viktor Hovland, who certainly has the attributes and confidence to win a major in the coming years. But this is his first appearance in Africa, and 2025 hasn’t been the best of years for him, so the South African contingent headed by Potgieter, Lawrence and Christiaan Bezuidenhout must be confident of their chances. Each of them knows and enjoys the course. Bezuidenhout won his SA Open here in 2020 by five shots with an 18-under total. That was played in December, as the NGC had been cancelled due to the Covid pandemic, and the biggest surprise is that he hasn’t won a tournament in the five years since then. All three players will have been heart- ened by what happened last year, when Veerman became the highest ranked player ever to triumph in the NGC. He was No 204 in the world when he DEFENDING CHAMPION Left: American Johannes Veerman with the Nedbank Challenge trophy after last year’s victory. NEARLY A CHAMPION Below: Aldrich Potgieter tees off on the par-5 tenth at last year’s NGC. He finished second, one shot behind Veerman.
ing. Oosthuizen – ranked as high as No 4 in the world – never got the job done at Sun City. He was close in 2018 when Lee Westwood won his third Nedbank Challenge trophy. The roster of Sun City champions from the first Million Dollar Challenge in 1981 reads like a Who’s Who of the greats in golf. As many as 14 victors
pinnacle of many careers. Plus, a first prize of almost R20 million from the R100-million plus prize fund. The only South African champi- ons in the new Millennium have been Ernie Els (twice), Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman and Grace, a Hall of Fame lineup who have each at some stage been in the Top 10 of the World Rank-
SCANDIS HAVE WON 3 TITLES Viktor Hovland will try to become the fourth
Scandinavian golfer to win the Nedbank Challenge, and the first from Norway. Sweden’s Henrik Stenson won the title in 2008 with a masterclass performance of 21-under 267 where he waltzed away from the field by nine shots. The Dane Thomas Bjorn was champion in 2013, the first year the NGC became part of the DP World Tour, and another Swede, Alex Noren, triumphed in 2016, also by a comfortable margin of six strokes.
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 65
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025
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