South African Open Championship Each-Way Tips: 66/1 Ramsay can make it two

• This test looks right up Richie Ramsay's avenue

• Frenchman Martin Couvra loves South Africa

• Veteran Branden Grace has another good week in him

For the first time since 2011 the South African Open has descended from the high veldt around Johannesburg to the seaside, but it's not the first time that Durban Country Club has hosted.

Ernie Els won the SA Open there in 1998 and 2011, Tim Clark won the same title in 2002 and 2005, Louis Oosthuizen completed victories in the 2013 and 2014 Volvo Golf Champions, and, more recently, JC Ritchie claimed the Jonsson Workwear Open when it was on the Challenge Tour in 2022.

In all, the club has hosted this championship 17 times and it has a reputation for being links-like with the holes running by the Indian Ocean built on sand hills which have created undulations and rolling terrain.

It's short at 6,780 yards but missing the fairway can prompt disasters because there is dense bush not far from the short grass.

Back in 2014, Branden Grace talked about the course to EuropeanTour.com saying: "You have to keep hitting the fairways. If you miss them you are really going to struggle and lose a couple of golf balls. They aren't the biggest greens or targets to hit either. But if you do hit the greens then you know you are going to have a birdie putt of a make-able distance so there are scoring opportunities out there too."

Last year Grace discussed recent renovations of the course in his column at The Compleat Golfer.

"At first I found myself somewhat uncertain about it all," he wrote. "I always thought the Old Lady just needed some real love and attention."

He added, however: "I was completely blown away. The aura was still there. The history was still there. But most impressively, the course changes are simply out of this world."

And here's a potentially key point: "They've cleared out a lot of the trademark KwaZulu-Natal shrubbery, giving golfers more forgiveness off the tee."

A remaining factor is the wind that whips in off the ocean - it can make hitting those narrow fairways and small greens a tougher task and Grace said of his trip there last summer: "There was a three-club wind, and trust me when I say, it was a real test."

Get it right in good conditions and there will be low scores this week, but the potential for a big score always lurks.

Main Bet: Richie Ramsay 1pt each-way @ 66/1

Dean Burmester is well-deserving of favouritism as the defending champion but in playing the course three times - albeit over 12 years ago - he failed to break 73 in nine laps.

As much as the test has changed - and the video in Steve Rawlings' preview (see below for a link) reveals it has - I'm wary of him at single figures.

The notion of a tight links-like track does rather bring the Scot Richie Ramsay to the fore, however.

He's finished first and fifth at Hillside, fourth and fifth at Murcar Links, ninth at Kennemer, and eighth and T12 at Golf Blue Green de Pleneuf Val Andre on the Brittany coast.

That's in addition to a genuine links record that includes excellent returns in the Dunhill Links Championship, second at Portstewart and T22 at Royal Birkdale in the Open.

Rather more straightforwardly he was ninth on the course in the 2013 Volvo Golf Champions and he won this championship in 2009 at Pearl Valley.

He also found a bit of form in the Middle East. At Doha, where he's never made a top 30 in 11 tries, he was T42.

But before then he was fourth in Bahrain.

Next Best: Martin Couvra 1pt each-way @ 60/1

The 22-year-old Frenchman Martin Couvra began his rookie year on the DP World Tour with a fine seventh at Leopard Creek and, after a couple of missed cuts to follow, he added fourth in Bahrain and fifth in Doha before T53 last week in Kenya.

It should be no surprise that he thrived in South Africa because his fine amateur career peaked there.

Two years ago this month he won the South African Stroke Play Championship at Mount Edgecombe and he did so in style - winning by six shots.

The following week, at the same venue, he tied Aldrich Potgieter after 36 holes of stroke play qualifying in the South African Amateur Championship and then won a play-off between the two to claim the Proudfoot Trophy.

Later, in the match play section, he made it through every round and defeated Kyle De Beer in the final to become the first winner of all three of those titles in the same year.

It earned him a place in the last SA Open and he finished a very fine T12 before adding fourth at Humewood in the NMB Championship - noteworthy because it is a genuine links course in South Africa.

Good vibes, a good start to his DP World career and it won't have hurt that he saw Potgieter contend last week on the PGA Tour. Anything he can do ...

Final Bet: Branden Grace 1pt each-way @ 40/1

We need a local on-board and we'll go with the man who loves the layout both before and after the tweaks.

Grace is no fool playing links golf. He won the Dunhill Links, he lives (at least some of the time) at Fancourt playing a links-like track, he carded a 62 at Royal Birkdale in the Open, and he's won at tight Harbour Town, too.

The three times he's played Durban in competition one round always cost him as he finished T21, seventh and second.

We need a local on-board and we'll go with the man who loves the layout both before and after the tweaks.

Grace is no fool playing links golf. He won the Dunhill Links, he lives (at least some of the time) at Fancourt playing a links-like track, he carded a 62 at Royal Birkdale in the Open, and he's won at tight Harbour Town, too.

The three times he's played Durban in competition one round always cost him as he finished T21, seventh and second.

At the last Dunhill Links, he carded three sub-69 scores and shortly after he carded a 63 when sixth at the modern linksy Oubaai.

He added another 63 when again sixth in the Saudi International in December.

He's been rusty in the first two LIV event this year but he won the SA Open in 2020, has also been second, fourth, sixth and seventh, and he'll want another crack at it his national championship before he's done - and at a favourite track is the ideal time.

Now read Steve Rawlings on the South African Open.

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