Ben Coley has four selections for the Alfred Dunhill Championship, including a four-time champion in Charl Schwartzel.
Golf betting tips: Alfred Dunhill Championship
3pts e.w. Charl Schwartzel at 22/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
2pts e.w. Brandon Stone at 33/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
2pts e.w. Jayden Schaper at 33/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Sean Crocker at 75/1 (Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
Last year's Alfred Dunhill Championship was perhaps the most vivid demonstration yet of what can happen in events with lopsided fields, within which there are players whose class advantage is exacerbated by also enjoying the luxury of playing at home.
In the end it was Louis Oosthuizen who finally got his hands on a title he'd long coveted, as all South Africans do. Typical of the man with the most fluid swing in the game and a grand slam of runner-up finishes in majors, Oosthuizen went from appearing in full control to something close to a meltdown, but had just enough in hand to deny CHARL SCHWARTZEL a fifth title.
With Christiaan Bezuidenhout back in third, if ever there was a tricast you really could've found in a full-field event, it might've been here. And it was a mere extension of a period of dominance for the best South African golfers playing in the best South African tournaments after two wins in a row for Dean Burmester, and two in as many seasons for Thriston Lawrence.
It's these players who dominate the market and choosing between them isn't easy, but this is far from Burmester's favourite course, ditto Lawrence, and that brings me back to last year's 1-2-3.
We were on Oosthuizen at 16s but he's now half the price while Bezuidenhout, sixth without ever looking the winner at Sun City, has also been put in at shorter. Of the two, the latter would be preferred but I find it hard to argue with 10/1 given that he's now winless in four years and seems to have struggled with his long-game for a while, perhaps because he's been in pursuit of a little more speed.
While those two are pretty much the players they were a year ago, there's a good argument that Schwartzel has improved and that, combined with a record of four course wins, five runner-up finishes, a third and a fourth, makes him worth backing each-way at 20/1 and upwards.
It's been a difficult year for the former Masters champion in many ways, his wife battling illness, but he's managed to go close to winning on three occasions, including in Qatar a fortnight ago. Compare that to 2023 when he registered just one top-10 finish on LIV Golf and the Asian Tour, and it seems clear he's a better player now than when chasing home Oosthuizen.
That effort came after he'd been 45th in the SA Open and missed the cut in Joburg, so again we've more encouragement to draw not only from second place in Qatar, but the way he played in the LIV team final before that. Schwartzel won two pairs matches alongside Oosthuizen and then shot six-under in the final-round stroke play.
Yes, he missed the cut last week in Saudi Arabia but only by a single shot and that may prove a blessing in disguise, freshening up for a return to his favourite course in the world. While he isn't as likely a contender as the two players I see as his biggest rivals, he remains the king of Leopard Creek and is the value call at the odds.
Should there be an overseas winner then it could well be Matti Schmid, who boasts a fine record in South Africa and was fourth here last year. His form at the time was probably a little better but two recent PGA Tour top-fives were enough to salvage his playing rights for 2025, and I can excuse him for taking his eye off the ball when that job had been completed.
Preference though is for BRANDON STONE, a six-shot winner here back in 2016.
Changes to the course the following year could be seen as a negative, kikuyu grass having been replaced by bermuda and making for a firmer, sometimes tougher test, but Stone did contend when finally able to defend his title in 2018, looking the most likely winner during round three.
Opening 77s in 2022 and 2023 soon derailed his latest two bids for the double but context is required and he'd been in abysmal form on both occasions, still managing to salvage pride in round two and further underlining that he really is comfortable around this iconic, demanding course.
At last, he gets to return to it with his game in good shape and it's no exaggeration to say that he's been on the verge of some of the best golf of his career lately. Eight times in his last nine starts he's finished inside the top 30, the exception being the quirky Dunhill Links, and since June he's been ninth, 10th twice, 12th, 17th, 18th and 19th.
Strong off the tee as always, improvement with the putter has helped turn things around and it was clear when he spoke at the Genesis Championship that Stone is thrilled with the state of his game and his state of mind as he puts back together a career which looked like it might really take off when he won the Scottish Open in 2018.
Last week's 18th place at Sun City was by far his best result in that event and pound-for-pound it was his best at the course full-stop, as he'd only managed 14th in a much weaker SA Open back in 2021, when it was essentially a Sunshine Tour event due to Covid travel restrictions.
To go there and produce a top-20 finish must have him buzzing ahead of a tournament in which he's been far more effective and this class act can compete with the best his country has to offer on his day. That day hasn't looked far away for a few months now and while I'll confess I'm yet to catch him on the right week, he has lots in his favour.
I had been expecting to side with Casey Jarvis back on home soil after a promising rookie campaign on the DP World Tour, but his form has cooled at the wrong time and the putter seems to be a big problem.
By contrast, JAYDEN SCHAPER is generally dependable with that club and it looks like he might've timed things nicely after some improved golf of late.
It's been an undeniably disappointing year for this huge talent who ended the last one with four top-10 finishes in succession, one of them here. He's added just two since and one of those was at a comparatively low level in the South African PGA Championship, so things haven't exactly gone to plan.
Still, the second top 10 was in Spain at the end of September and after a narrow missed cut in France, he's finished 17th, 37th and 17th, latterly in Saudi Arabia where he played really nicely at the weekend with rounds of 64 and 67 seeing him climb 30 places on the leaderboard.
Dating back to a second-round 68 to just miss out at Le Golf National, Schaper has produced 13 under-par scores in succession and by no means would I have the courses he's played listed as particularly suitable. All of them were in fact new to him and to match Oosthuizen last week was an excellent effort all things considered.
Now Schaper comes back to Leopard Creek, where he was a gallant runner-up to Bezuidenhout in 2020, finished seventh last year, and has made all four cuts despite being a teenager for the first two of them.
He really should go well in an event the home contingent could once again dominate and with doubts surrounding Tom McKibbin (very poor last week), Romain Langasque (nursing a wrist injury) and a few more of the Europeans, Schaper has to make the staking plan at anything north of 28/1.
Erik van Rooyen is a two-time PGA Tour winner who can be backed at the same price and that alone is noteworthy, but Leopard Creek isn't for everyone and he's yet to be a factor here. He has at least doubled in price from 2023, when he arrived following victory in Mexico, but there wasn't enough in his performance last week to suggest he's about to start hitting the ball to the required standard.
That's rarely a concern for SEAN CROCKER and while his driving hasn't been faultless lately, one of the best iron players in this field can threaten again if he's a little tidier off the tee.
In fairness to Crocker, he drove it really well in Spain four starts ago and in finishing third there, his second top-three finish since June, confirmed what we all should know by now: when he makes a few putts, he's a serious threat at just about any level.
That can never be guaranteed but he's been a bit better over the last couple of seasons and I wonder whether he might be able to ride the US wave, after wins for Ryggs Johnston and Johannes Veerman over the first three weeks of the new DP World Tour season.
Crocker is certainly coming to the right course at which to find out as he followed an excellent debut 18th with second place in 2020, when like Schaper he looked like winning for a while. Missing the cut in 2022 isn't a concern either as he'd been in shocking form for months back then.
After a solid season which saw him finish 71st on the Race to Dubai, Zimbabwe-born Crocker is preferred to course debutants Marcus Kinhult and Marcel Schneider. Both of these tidier players are respected having shown signs of life towards the end of the previous season, Schneider in particular, but experience can count for plenty here.
Among the Sunshine Tour regulars I thought Dylan Naidoo might be a tad overpriced and Yurav Premlall is delivering on his long-held promise, so watch for both appearing on a leaderboard peppered with the South African flag, but it's two past champions who look to finally be ready to relive former glories at perhaps the most famous course in Africa.
Posted at 1800 GMT on 09/12/24
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