ALFRED DUNHILL CHAMPIONSHIP

This prestigious event offers home delights aplenty each year. Brendan Barratt

Ask any South African professional golfer to nominate their favourite tournament and many, without hesitation, will pick the Alfred Dunhill Championship. Their favourite course? Leopard Creek Country Club.

It’s as much a nod to the prestige of the event and the genius of the Gary Player bushveld design that cosies up to the Kruger National Park as it is to the reverence the golfers hold for South African businessman Johann Rupert.

Rupert owns the Leopard Creek estate and sponsors the tournament, but his impact and influence on the sport stretches far, far deeper than this. Chairman of the Sunshine Tour and of GolfRSA, and the founder of the SA Golf Development Board, Rupert continues to extend his considerable knowledge and expertise to all levels of the game in this country.

It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that much of South Africa’s golfing success can in some way be attributed to him. Behind the scenes, he has been on hand to provide wise counsel and unpublicised assistance to many promising young golfers at the beginning of their journeys.

It’s no wonder, then, that so many South African golfers are desperate to win this event – and why there is so often a local name at the apex of the leaderboard. The past 11 renditions of the Alfred Dunhill Championship have produced nine South African wins, and despite it attracting the best of the DP World Tour players, it would be no surprise to see another home winner this year.

Local knowledge tends to play as the 15th club in the bag around the Leopard Creek layout, with experienced players having learned some painful lessons about when to attack and when to play conservatively. Importantly, experience helps you learn where to miss because while there may be plenty of birdies on offer, the course also punishes any errors. Severely.

LEOPARD SPOTTING

Sightings of leopards strolling around Leopard Creek may be rare, but they do still happen. However, each hole is home to a bronze sculpture of Panthera pardus, created by acclaimed South African artist Dylan Lewis.

Lewis described his work as, “An evocation of the palpable menace that lies just beyond the manicured greens: a reminder of the wild, untamed periphery beyond the man-made oasis.”

The series of sculptures follows a leopard through its day from dawn to dusk. You’ll see the leopard lying on a rock in the morning sun on the 1st, hunting on the 15th and 16th, and ending with a gaze out across the bushveld on the 18th.

LOOKING BACK...

Check out some of the weird and wonderful moments from the 2023 Alfred Dunhill Championship.

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Although the tournament has retained its familiar December time slot, this year the Alfred Dunhill Championship forms part of the Opening Swing of the 2025 season.

The Opening Swing is one of the five Global Swings on the 2025 Race to Dubai, with each Swing crowning an individual champion. Exemptions into some of the biggest tournaments on the Tour, as well as extra prize money, are also incentives.

LIV Golf players will once again be welcome at the co-sanctioned event, with Louis Oosthuizen back to defend the title he won last year. He’ll face a stiff challenge from Christiaan Bezuidenhout, winner of the 2020 Alfred Dunhill Championship, as well as Erik van Rooyen, Dean Burmester and many other big names eager to get their hands on the iconic trophy.

Charl Schwartzel, a four-time champion and five-time runner-up, holds the tournament record of 24 under par, achieved back in 2012. The course has, however, become a tougher test since undergoing major renovations in 2017, when the layout was resurfaced using the endemic Cynodon grass.

There were also some subtle changes made to the design, all of which have made the course a little harder to overwhelm.

Those lucky enough to have played Leopard Creek will know just how uncompromising the course is for the average amateur, yet for the professionals the back nine offers a real chance to go low, with three par fives and some gettable par fours on the scorecard. It’s part of the reason the tournament makes for such riveting viewing right until the iconic final hole, where players can make anything from an eye-catching eagle to a nasty shot, depending on how dry their ball stays.