Nedbank Golf Challenge: Qatar form could be the key

• Fleetwood back to defend after three years
• Qatar form well worth considering
• Coetzee can put poor course form behind him

Tournament History

The Nedbank Golf Challenge was first played in 1981 when Johnny Miller pocketed the then huge purse of $500,000.

It remained an exclusive 12-man invitational event right up until 2013 when it became an official co-sanctioned Sunshine and DP World Tour event for an extended field of 30. It underwent an even more expansive revamp in 2016 when the field was increased to 72.

The Nedbank has been part of the now defunct Final Series, and the last time the event was staged, in 2019, it was a Rolex Series event.

As it was back in 2019, the Nedbank is the penultimate DP World Tour event of the season and it's yet again a limited field event for the leading available 60 players from the DP World Tour Rankings as of 30th October 2022.

Venue

The Gary Player Country Club, Sun City, South Africa

Course Details

Par 72, 7,833 yards
Stroke index in 2019 - 71.64

Gary Player's lengthy creation is a parkland course set in an extinct volcanic crater. It has fairly narrow Kikuyu fairways and Kikuyu rough and the small well-bunkered, bent grass greens usually run at around 11 on the stimpmeter.

In addition to hosting this tournament since day one, the Gary Player Country Club also hosted the Dimension Data Pro-Am on South Africa's Sunshine Tour up until 2009 and it's been the venue for the Sun City Challenge since 2012.

A hole-by hole guide on the event's website can be viewed here.

Since the 2019 edition of this event, the Gary Player Country Club has staged two other Sunshine Tour events - the 2020 Royal Swazi Open and the Blue Label Challenge in 2021 - as well as the last two editions of the South African Open.

Weather Forecast

TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 9:00 on Thursday

Last Five Winners with Pre-event Exchange Prices

2019 - Tommy Fleetwood -12 (playoff) 20.019/1
2018 - Lee Westwood -15 55.054/1
2017 - Branden Grace -11 18.017/1
2016 - Alex Noren -14 24.023/1
2015 - Marc Leishman -19 80.079/1

What Will it Take to Win the Nedbank Challenge?

I'm not really sure how Branden Grace managed to win five years ago. He shot a six-over-par 42 on the front nine on Friday, ranked 63rd for Driving Distance, 54th for Driving Accuracy, 31st for Greens In Regulation and 12th for Scrambling. He did putt well, however, and made more birdies than anyone else.

Even so, after that 'hiccup' in round two and with stats that poor, it was a remarkable achievement. The last Nedbank winner, Tommy Fleetwood, as well as the last two South African Open winners, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Daniel van Tonder, had far more typical Sun City stats.

As it's at altitude and the ball travels around 10% further than it does at sea level, Sun City doesn't play as long as the yardage suggests, but it's still a long course and getting it out there off the tee is important. And so is finding the fairways. The Kikuyu rough is notoriously hard to play from and missing fairways with regularity makes it impossible to find the number of greens necessary to compete. Lee Westwood has always been regarded as one of the best drivers in the world so it's no coincidence that he's prospered here, winning the Nedbank three times in total.

Bezuidenhout ranked only 39th for Driving Distance but a very respectable 10th for Driving Accuracy and Fleetwood and van Tonder both drove the ball brilliantly. Fleetwood ranked seventh for DD and eighth for DA and van Tonder ranked ninth for DD and 14th for DA.

The 2015 Nedbank winner Marc Leishman ranked sixth for DD and 12th for DA. The 2016 champ Alex Noren ranked 14th for DD and 39th for DA. So Total Driving is a good stat to consider but Greens In Regulation and Scrambling are usually the most important.

Bezuidenhout ranked first for Greens In Regulation and second for Scrambling. Van Tonder ranked ninth for GIR and first for Scrambling. Grace looks like a real anomaly because, not counting the Sunshine Tour events, three of the last seven Nedbank winners ranked first for GIR. The other three odd men out, Danny Willett (2014), Westwood (2018) and Fleetwood in 2019, still ranked third, fourth and eighth.

Although Grace only ranked 31st, the next four on the leaderboard ranked fifth, first, 11th and second so GIR is definitely a key stat.

Fleetwood only ranked 40th for Scrambling in the last edition but the runner-up, Mathias Schwab, ranked sixth. Jason Scrivener and Bernd Wiesberger, who finished tied for third, ranked first and fourth. The six Nedbank winners before Fleetwood ranked 13th, first, first, third, 12th and 14th for Scrambling.

Bezuidenhout and van Tonder ranked first for Par 4 Scoring but making hay on the par fives is nearly always crucial here. Five of the last six Nedbank winners played the long holes better than anyone else in the field.

Is There an Angle In?

This used to be a notoriously bad event for debutants and not just because there were only one or two in the small fields of 12.

Back in 2012, five of the 12 were making their debut but only one of the five, Bill Haas, who finished third, finished inside the top-six. In 2013 more than half the field were playing Sun City for the first time and yet only one of them, Brendon de Jonge, managed to finish inside the top-six but all that changed nine years ago.

The 2013 winner, Thomas Bjorn, had only ever played Sun City twice before and that was in the last century in the Dimension Data, 16 years prior to his win, so he can't have been too familiar with the venue. The next three winners, as well as the 2016 runner-up, Jeunghun Wang, who traded at around 1.330/100 in-running, were all playing the course for the first time.

Having considered it almost essential to have played here previously, that run of results changed my opinion, but Grace had some nice course form in the book before he won here in 2017, the first four home in 2018 all had strong course form and Fleetwood had course form figures reading 14-21-14-10 before he won the last edition in 2019.

From a course form correlation perspective, a number of course winners (and seconds) have form at both Wentworth and Doha, home of the Qatar Masters.

Leishman has never played Wentworth and Fleetwood's best finish there is sixth, but he led the BMW there after round one in September. The five Sun City winners before him have either won the BMW PGA Championship or they've traded at odds-on to win it.

The 2019 Qatar Masters winner, Justin Harding was eighth here in 2017, sixth a year later and sixth in the South African Open last year. Having led by four with a round to go, the 2017 Qatar Masters winner, Wang, arguably should have won here in 2016. Markus Kinhult, who was beaten by Fleetwood in extra-time here in 2019 has finished third at Doha twice.

Grace, the 2017 winner of this event, won back-to-back Qatar Masters titles in 2015 and 2016. The two-time Sun City winner Sergio Garcia (who also traded at odds-on here in 2018) won the 2014 edition of the Qatar Masters. Thomas Bjorn, Henrik Stenson, Ernie Els, and Henrik Stenson have all also won at both venues. There are worse places to start than Doha for clues.

Is There an Identikit Winner?

Multiple winners are fairly common. David Frost, Nick Price, Ernie Els and Westwood have all won the event three times and four men, Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Jim Furyk and Sergio Garcia have all won the event twice.

This hasn't been a good event for outsiders. Westwood went off at 55.054/1 in 2018 and Leishman was matched at 80.079/1 when he won seven years ago. But he was the biggest priced winner in many a year, so outsiders have a poor record.

Winner's Position and Exchange Price Pre-Round Four

2019 - Tommy Fleetwood - T12th - trailing by six 90.089/1
2018 - Lee Westwood T3rd - trailing by three 12.523/2
2017 - Branden Grace T3rd - trailing by three 5.69/2
2016 - Alex Noren - T4th - trailing by six 22.021/1
2015 - Marc Leishman - led by a stroke 2.3211/8

In-Play Tactics

In its old, limited field format very few winners came from off the pace in the Nedbank but that made sense. Not only were they small fields but they were small fields containing very high-quality golfers. The very best would separate themselves from the majority in the small field and more often than not, that would be that but since the format has changed and the fields have been expanded, a new pattern has emerged...

The last four Nedbank winners have trailed by six, three, three and six strokes with a round to go. Players going odds-on and getting beat is now commonplace. It's a really tough golf course and your game can unravel fast.

Market Leaders

He's waited three years, but Tommy Fleetwood is back to defend his title and he heads the market.

Fleetwood was an impressive enough fourth at the CJ Cup last time out but he's far from great in-contention and things need to fall into place for him to win.

He hasn't won anywhere since his victory here in 2019 and he's certainly not for me at 10/1.

Thomas Detry has only played here twice before, finishing seventh and third, and he arrives in form having finished runner-up at the Bermuda Championship on the PGA Tour and 15th last week in Mexico. But he's even harder to get across the line than Fleetwood.

The Belgian is still in search of his first win on the DP World Tour and at the same price, Jordan Smith looks a better bet.

Smith celebrates his 30th birthday on the eve of the event and if his deeply impressive victory at the Portugal Masters two weeks ago is anything to go by, he could quite conceivably go back-to-back.

He romped to victory in Portugal following a respectable sixth at Valderrama but his course form here, reading W-21-48, is nothing special.

Selections

In 10 previous visits to Sun City, George Coetzee has never bettered 12th here and that's the only reason he's drifted right out to 55.054/1 as he's bang in form.

Following a seventh placed finish in the Open de France, Coetzee finished 17th at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and only last week he won the South African PGA Championship.

He tends to play well in his homeland so his form here is a bit of a mystery given he's twice finished second at Doha. If we dig a bit deeper there's evidence to suggest he can play the track.

Coetzee sat second after round one in 2014 (finished 16th) and he sat second at halfway here in 2016 before a poor weekend saw him slip to 25th, thanks mainly to an 82 on Saturday!

George's only victory outside of South Africa (at the Portugal Masters in 2020) occurred after he'd won the week before in his homeland. He tends to hold his form for a few weeks when he gets hot, so I was happy to back him at 55.054/1.

My only other pick is this year's Qatar Masters winner, Ewen Ferguson, who I'm pleased to see Matt Cooper likes too. I was more than happy to get Ferguson onside at 95.094/1 and I'll have one more at least in the Find Me a 100 Winner column tomorrow.

Selections:
George Coetzee @ 55.054/1
Ewen Ferguson @ 95.094/1

*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter