South Africa's best junior golfers will get a taste of the Nedbank Challenge at Sun City following the launch of a new event. Picture: Jan Kruger/Getty Images
Sun City is hoping that luck is with them this year and they are able to host the Nedbank Golf Challenge, but in the meantime South Africa’s juniors will have the good fortune of playing the Gary Player Country Club in a major event as the new Nedbank Junior Challenge was announced on Wednesday.
The prestigious Nedbank Golf Challenge was not held in 2020 due to Covid and unable to have crowds in attendance, but tournament director Ken Payet said it was still too early to say whether “Africa’s Major” would be able to take place this year.
The European Tour have scheduled the tournament for 11-14 November.
“We’ve been having discussions and from the Nedbank and European Tour perspective it is still too early and anything we say would be just speculation. We’re obviously hoping to put it on this year, but it depends on the regulations in place. By the end of June or July we will make a call, but there are just too many moving parts at the moment in terms of the regulations and everyone waiting for the third wave,” Payet said on Wednesday.
The good news though is that the country’s top juniors will get the whole famous Gary Player Country Club experience from 3-5 May, with the winner of the event getting to be a part of the Nedbank Golf Challenge as an observer in the inner circle.
The 54-hole tournament will offer world amateur ranking points on a par with the SA Amateur Championship and the 78-man field will be drawn from the top-50 on the GolfRSA rankings as well as giving exposure to an excellent array of development golfers, through the SA Golf Development Board.
The winner will receive a replica of the famous crystal-ball Nedbank Golf Challenge senior trophy and might even be able to play a practice round with one of the players in the field for the professional showpiece.
Grant Hepburn, the CEO of GolfRSA, said there has already been an excellent response to the tournament.
“Entries have been open for one week and we are well over-subscribed already with 86 applications, so we will have the cream of the crop playing. We’re very excited to be taking our top amateurs to such an iconic venue. We all grew up watching the Nedbank Golf Challenge and it is such a big part of the South African sporting scene. This event is important for us to keep producing golfers at the highest level,” Hepburn said.
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