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Focus turns to South Africa

Author: Lynda Collins
Date: 18/12/2009
Golf betting

Few tournaments in world golf can boast a higher quality honours' board than the South African Open Championship.

South African Major winners Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Trevor Immelman, plus tour stars Richard Sterne and Tim Clark, have all won their home championship in recent years.

Now the second event on the 2010 European Tour schedule, the tournament combines a fairly hefty purse with a picturesque location at Pearl Valley Golf Estates, near Paarl.

It therefore attracts a combination of a quality field from Europe and several up and coming home players looking to follow in some fairly esteemed footsteps.

Charl Schwartzel, Louis Oosthuizen and Thomas Aiken are three such rising stars who are hoping to become the next Els or Goosen.

All three enjoyed solid 2009 seasons, with Schwartzel in particular looking like he has all the attributes necessary to be a leading global player.

The 25-year-old banked almost one million euros in prize money last season and has three European Tour tournament wins to his name after blazing on to the scene with victory at the 2005 Dunhill Links Championship.

The next logical step for Schwartzel would be to add the national championship to his burgeoning trophy cabinet and his past performances certainly suggest this could be his year.

The online betting favourite has finished second and third in the tournament after winning the medal for low amateur as a teenager back in 2002.

Will Charl Schwartzel win the South African Open Championship? - Latest Golf Betting

Elsewhere, Oosthuizen showed his promise with two runner-up finishes in the early part of the 2009 season.

Aiken's moment in the spotlight came at the Open Championship where he ended in a share of eighth place at Turnberry back in July.

Both are ranked comfortably inside the world's top 100 players and could provide healthy competition for Schwartzel.

Of the travelling European contingent, expect a strong showing from Edoardo Molinari.

Alongside his brother, Francesco, he won the recent Mission Hills World Cup for Italy with an impressive team performance in China.

The 28-year-old is something of a late developer compared to his sibling but has won his tour card for 2010 on the back of a wildly successful last season on the Challenge Tour.

One tournament win and nine top 10 finishes saw him run away with the Order of Merit title and he will be desperate to carry that form over into life among the big boys on the European Tour.

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