Louis Oosthuizen can be the latest big-name South African to show their class on home soil according to golf expert Ben Coley.
Golf betting tips: Alfred Dunhill Championship
3pts win Louis Oosthuizen at 16/1 (General - 18s Betfred)
3pts win Branden Grace at 16/1 (General)
1pt e.w. Andy Sullivan at 70/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Dylan Frittelli at 125/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Andrew Johnston at 125/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Andrea Pavan at 200/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Max Homa, Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland have all come up short in their respective hat-trick bids of late, each defending a title they'd won twice before, and now Dean Burmester has a go – only his version would be even more impressive were he to complete it.
Burmester won the Joburg Open as an 11/1 favourite, then the South African Open at 7/1 last week (300s-plus in-running), and now goes into the Alfred Dunhill Championship at 6/1. Along with the Nedbank Challenge these are the biggest tournaments in South Africa, and he could be three-quarters of the way to the full house thanks to one trip back home.
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Last week's performance was particularly impressive for the fact that Burmester made the cut by a shot. It's to take nothing away from him to say that he was able to capitalise on a lack of experience and winning form when it came to the crunch, and that his sensational 65 to vault into contention on Saturday benefited from that early tee-time his lacklustre start to the event had ensured.
Nevertheless, when hitting the front he never looked like losing, and that's some achievement when you're playing for some of the most important events held in your homeland. Winning the South African Open matters, and Burmester grabbed his first real opportunity to do so.
While nodding to his dominance feels necessary, I don't think we need to spend long dwelling on the idea of backing him. Burmester was ill last week, adding another layer to the remarkable nature of his second victory, and there's an obvious chance the well at last runs dry. I doubt he'll get away with a sluggish start again and this should prove much harder to win.
Leopard Creek is shorter than Blair Atholl, but does now share that venue's bermuda grass and has done since 2017. Perhaps that goes some way to explaining slightly tougher scoring conditions than before, as the course is now intended to play firmer. Always a venue for strong drivers in the past, the short-game skills of Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Pablo Larrazabal have at the very least been bumped up the list of priorities.
We do still see some powerhouses in the mix here, Adrian Meronk, Adri Arnaus and Sean Crocker each having a chance to win in 2020, but with David Lipsky having led home David Drysdale in 2018, it's hard to argue in favour of a particular profile. The key dynamic is simply that Leopard Creek is penal, and that's the reason we can draw parallels with places like Valderrama, Le Golf National, and the absurd DLF in India.
Zander Lombard arrives bang in-form and could draw huge encouragement from the way he battled back from an opening triple-bogey to finish 12th last week, so having twice had a chance to win here is extremely difficult to leave out.
However, that reckless drive he has in the locker is a worry at this golf course and the winner may well come from the six names above him in the betting, among whom teammates BRANDEN GRACE and LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN stand out.
Oosthuizen was my headline selection last year and finished seventh, the second time in a row that he's done so around here. Also a three-time runner-up in the past, it's the one big South African title that has eluded him so far and, with strong ties to the event and its host, Johann Rupert, motivation isn't a concern.
I'll admit that it's challenging to accurately rate players like him, those who are past their best and now play on a circuit that lacks depth, doesn't necessarily incentivise absolute focus, and plays 54-hole sprints. The LIV Golf format will suit some more than others and I doubt it's ideal for a player whose patience made him such a fearsome major performer.
Certainly, the fact he's won at one-in-four on home soil since becoming a major champion only has so much worth as a guide to his chances, but it does help underline that his best form is the best in this field, and I simply don't think the market is giving him enough respect.
When last Oosthuizen was in action he lost a closely-fought game to Joaquin Niemann, subsequently victorious in Australia, and it's undeniably been a good couple of weeks for the Saudi-backed league. Oosthuizen might feed off Burmester's success and I have no issues putting him up after a break, given his phenomenal record in season-opening events down the years.
He's playing in Mauritius next week, too, and I'd be surprised and disappointed if he's not good enough to make a real impact in either or indeed both of these events. Leopard Creek is a great fit and anything bigger than 12/1 looks generous about such a class act, one whose decline has been steady rather than steep. At this level, he remains a massive runner.
Grace has recently welcomed the arrival of his second child and perhaps that affected his preparations for the Nedbank Challenge, where he was disappointing. Still, prior to that he'd matched Burmester's 67 in the final round of the LIV Golf season, and it was Grace who led that team as their standout performer in 2023.
A past champion here, he was in the mix throughout on his final start in the event before joining LIV, finishing third, and returned last year to finish fourth, the pick of the big names. His record at Leopard Creek since his 2012 emergence is outstanding and a second title will be well within reach if he can putt better than he did at Sun City.
Grace was suffering with one or two injury niggles a year ago, but this time around appears to be all set despite electing not to play the Joburg Open two weeks ago. That would have been preferable, but missing the slog around Blair Atholl might not be a bad thing and he too looks overpriced.
Taking two of the market leaders is not my preferred policy and it backfired here last year, but as Burmester, Niemann, Min Woo Lee and various big-name PGA Tour players have demonstrated since September, weaker fields often provide the best opportunities at the top of the betting.
Cases can be made for Erik van Rooyen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Thriston Lawrence and the former's PGA Tour form is compelling, but this may be another weekend dominated by the LIV Golf raiders. At 15/2 dutched, Grace and Oosthuizen look the best value.
Their teammate Charl Schwartzel is half the price he was last week despite performing poorly for the most part and while that reflects his past dominance around here, he's not shown enough to be considered value. I'd rather be on Ewen Ferguson, whose odds have gone the other way, and who has plenty of experience of the course from his days as an amateur taking part in the Leopard Trophy.
The same goes for Jayden Schaper and Wilco Nienaber and the former will do for many, given that he contended here in 2020 and would've done last year had his putter behaved. Schaper has to bounce back from a poor final round at Blair Atholl, but at 28/1 generally his price has held up quite well – by comparison, Ryan van Velzen is 80/1 from 250s for playing to an almost identical standard.
Schaper and Ferguson are the two to look closely at if you're disinclined towards win-only bets on hard-to-gauge golfers, but I'll look to those at bigger prices, starting with ANDY SULLIVAN.
Sullivan's success in South Africa, where he's twice a winner, can actually be traced back to third place on his Leopard Creek debut in 2012. That was his first DP World Tour top-10 and came about thanks to a stunning Saturday 64 which saw him make a big move up the leaderboard, Sunday's 69 then edging him into third behind runaway winner Schwartzel.
Having returned to finish 12th a year later, I'm surprised he's only been here once since, but needs must and having only just cracked the top 100 on the Race to Dubai in each of the last two seasons, no doubt he's back in South Africa hoping to build himself a platform to get back where he feels he belongs.
Four good rounds in Joburg two weeks ago marked a nice return to action, a month or so after he'd played really well for all bar the third round in Qatar, and I quite liked his mid-pack effort in the SA Open. Blair Atholl is a bit of a slog for a player like him, and he knew it after an opening 67 to sit on the heels of the leaders.
"It's a course that really doesn't particularly suit me," said Sullivan. "My long-game was good last week. It was good, I was happy out there, I was solid. I'm not going to complain about five-under around here, ever!"
Another fast start there suggests he's not far away at the moment and Sullivan really does fit the bill at this course, his strong records at Valderrama and in Paris underlining that he knows how to grind even if he's perhaps better known for winning shootouts in Portugal and at home.
Those difficult courses I've mentioned also bring the name ANDREW JOHNSTON into the reckoning, as he's a past winner at Valderrama who has always enjoyed playing Le Golf National. Second at DLF on his sole start there, Beef's name was hard to escape when scanning what I feel are handy form guides.
Third here in 2014 tells us Leopard Creek suits, anyway, and that came on his first start as a DP World Tour member, so at three-figure prices he made just enough appeal despite the obvious concern – the fact that this is just his second start back following another lengthy injury absence.
As the performance of Will Zalatoris last week demonstrates, backing players who are on the recovery trail comes with risks, but Johnston showed enough with a second-round 68 at Blair Atholl and, like Sullivan, I'd have this course down as vastly more suitable.
It's worth saying that his only other start in 2023 saw him finish mid-pack in Dubai, again after plenty of time away, and that was a very respectable effort in strong company. We can also refer back to 2020, when he was third in Wales on his second start following a longer break than most, having been absent for eight months beforehand.
It's a bit of a guessing game, granted, but 100/1 and bigger is worth the risk. Johnston is a class act good enough to be going off a quarter of the price and his second round in the SA Open, which featured just one bogey and a spirited run at making the cut only to fall one shy, must've given him plenty of encouragement.
Next is DYLAN FRITTELLI, who definitely has the class to win one of these big South African events.
Frittelli also missed the cut by one last week, unable to recover from a slow start to the tournament. I really don't mind that one bit, especially as he'd shown plenty in Joburg before that, which in turn followed an eye-catching second round at the RSM Classic.
It seems he might be emerging from a prolonged slump and Leopard Creek is surely the place to test that theory, as he's played here five times, never quite cracking the places but never finishing worse than 25th, either.
You might think this all happened when he was at the top of his game, but that's not the case. On debut in 2014 he was struggling on the Challenge Tour and the Sunshine Tour, and a year later he'd gone 23-MC-MC-MC back home, all of them weak events, following a quiet run in Europe.
In 2016 he'd just earned his card following a good Challenge Tour campaign, in 2018 he'd missed the cut at Randpark a week earlier (albeit he'd been playing well before that), and on his only subsequent start, in 2022, he'd been struggling in the US and finished a modest 50th at Blair Atholl.
Given that Burmester won from the cut mark last week, it's perfectly possible that Frittelli would've finished higher up than 50th had he been a shot better over the first 36 holes, and with such a strong bank of course form behind him I'm really surprised he's not in the 50-66/1 region for this.
Yes, he can be errant off the tee, his pursuit of speed perhaps now catching up with him, but the rest of his game can be elite and we are talking about a PGA Tour winner here. Frittelli doesn't need to improve on the way he played two weeks ago to be in the mix at a course he prefers.
Dale Whitnell's improved performances over the past fortnight and love of the course mark him down as one to watch, but I'll sign off with ANDREA PAVAN.
This two-time DP World Tour winner had to drop down to the Challenge Tour as the result of a dramatic decline since beating Matt Fitzpatrick to the BMW International Open title in 2019, but fourth place in Cape Town back in February started things moving in the right direction again.
Pavan's victory in the Czech Republic, where he'd first won on the DP World Tour, just about sealed his return ticket and he ended the campaign playing beautifully, with eight top-20s in succession including a trio of top-fives.
Missing the cut in the Joburg Open was hardly indicative of a player coming crashing back down to earth as he did so by a single shot, and then came a top-20 finish at Blair Atholl where his short-game was sharp and he made just seven bogeys all week, ranking joint-best in the field around an unrelenting course.
Yes, wide fairways probably helped this errant driver, but he was seventh here on debut and 11th on his second try, so his game does work at Leopard Creek. It would be a lovely story if he could come back and restore pride having shot 87 here at his lowest ebb, and Matteo Manassero's performance last week may serve as some inspiration, too.
Posted at 2100 GMT on 04/12/23
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