2003–04 Sunshine Tour

The 2003–04 Sunshine Tour was the fourth season of professional golf tournaments since the southern Africa based Sunshine Tour was rebranded in 2000. The Sunshine Tour represents the highest level of competition for male professional golfers in the region.

There were 17 tournaments on the schedule. This was an increase of one from the previous year. There were three tournaments from the previous season that were eliminated: the Dimension Data Better-Ball tournament, the Vodacom Golf Classic, and the Vodacom Players Championship. Three new tournaments were added: the Canon Classic (played in 2003 only), the Devondale Championship (played in 2003 only), and the Parmalat Classic. The tour was based predominantly in South Africa, with 13 of the 17 tournaments being held in the country. Two events were held in Swaziland, and one event each was held in Botswana and Zambia. Two events, the Dunhill Championship and the South African Airways Open were co-sanctioned by the European Tour.

The Order of Merit was won by Darren Fichardt.

Schedule[]

The table below shows schedule of events for the 2003–04 Sunshine Tour. As usual, the tour consisted of two distinct parts, commonly referred to as the "Summer Swing" and "Winter Swing". Tournaments held during the Summer Swing generally had much higher prize funds, attracted stronger fields, and were the only tournaments on the tour to carry world ranking points.

Prize funds shown did not count directly towards the Order of Merit. The number in brackets after each winner's name is the number of official money Sunshine Tour events he had won up to and including that tournament. This information is only shown for Sunshine Tour members.

Date	Tournament	Location	Purse (R)	Winner	OWGR points	Other tours[a]	Notes	Ref.
8 Mar	Stanbic Zambia Open	Zambia	500,000	Johan Edfors (n/a)	n/a	CHA		[1]
29 Mar		Botswana	150,000	Trevor Fisher Jnr (1)	n/a			[2]
10 May		Limpopo	175,000	Marc Cayeux (6)	n/a			[3]
18 May	Capital Alliance Royal Swazi Sun Open	Swaziland	175,000	Des Terblanche (11)	n/a			[4]
30 May		Western Cape	100,000	Hendrik Buhrmann (7)	n/a		New tournament	[5]
7 Jun		Western Cape	100,000	(1)	n/a		New tournament	[6]
22 Jun	Royal Swazi Sun Classic	Swaziland	100,000	Nic Henning (2)	n/a			[7]
27 Jun		Eastern Cape	100,000	Desvonde Botes (9)	n/a		New tournament	[8]
4 Oct		Gauteng	100,000	Chris Williams (7)	n/a		New tournament	[9]
12 Oct	Bearing Man Highveld Classic	Mpumalanga	100,000	(1)	n/a			[10]
1 Nov	Platinum Classic	North West	300,000	Doug McGuigan (1)	n/a			[11]
18 Jan	South African Airways Open	Western Cape	2,650,000	Trevor Immelman (4)	32	EUR	Flagship event	[12]
25 Jan	Dunhill Championship	Gauteng	3,100,000	Marcel Siem (n/a)	18	EUR		[13]
1 Feb	Dimension Data Pro-Am	North West	1,000,000	Darren Fichardt (4)	12			[14]
8 Feb	Nashua Masters	Eastern Cape	500,000	Andrew McLardy (4)	12			[15]
15 Feb	Telkom PGA Championship	Gauteng	600,000	(2)	12			[16]
22 Feb	The Tour Championship	Mpumalanga	1,200,000	Andrew McLardy (5)	12		Tour Championship	[17]

Order of Merit[]

Rank	Player[18]	Events	Prize money (R)
1	Darren Fichardt	6	726,545
2	Andrew McLardy	7	617,278
3	Desvonde Botes	16	457,265
4	Louis Oosthuizen	8	381,729
5	Titch Moore	10	368,710

References[]

External links[]

• Official website