2007 Sunshine Tour

The 2007 Sunshine Tour was the eighth season of professional golf tournaments since the southern Africa based Sunshine Tour was rebranded in 2000, and the marked the beginning of a new era as the tour switched to a calendar based season, having previously been seasonal. The Sunshine Tour represents the highest level of competition for male professional golfers in the region.

The tour was based predominantly in South Africa, with 24 of the 28 tournaments being held in the country. Two events were held in Swaziland, with one each in Zambia and Namibia. There were five new tournaments, the Joburg Open, one of three events co-sanctioned by the PGA European Tour, the Nashua Golf Challenge, the Lombard Insurance Classic, the returning Mount Edgecombe Trophy, and the Nedbank Affinity Cup, introduced to the schedule as an appetizer to the high profile Nedbank Golf Challenge.

The Order of Merit was won for the first time by James Kingston, breaking Charl Schwartzel's three year stranglehold on the title.

Schedule[]

The table below shows schedule of events for the 2007 Sunshine Tour.^[1] 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, with three events being co-sanctioned with the European Tour.

The Winter Swing ran from March to November, starting with the Mount Edgecombe Trophy, and closing with the Coca-Cola Charity Championship. Since the tour switched to a calendar based season, this part of the tour effectively splits the Summer Swing into two, with five events being held at the start of the year, and the remainder in December. Due to these scheduling changes, the first five events of the 2007 season had already been part of the 2006–07 tour schedule, but continued to count towards the final standings of both.

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
14 Jan	Joburg Open	Gauteng	€1,000,000	Ariel Cañete (n/a)	20	EUR	New tournament
28 Jan	Dimension Data Pro-Am	North West	1,600,000	Louis Oosthuizen (2)	14
4 Feb	Nashua Masters	Eastern Cape	1,200,000	Jean Hugo (5)	14
18 Feb	Vodacom Championship	Gauteng	2,200,000	Richard Sterne (2)	14
25 Feb	Telkom PGA Championship	Gauteng	2,250,000	Louis Oosthuizen (3)	14
11 Mar	Mount Edgecombe Trophy	KwaZulu-Natal	500,000	Steve van Vuuren (7)	n/a		Not played since 1994
1 Apr	Finance Bank Zambia Open	Zambia	750,000	(3)	n/a
15 Apr		North West	400,000	Chris Swanepoel (1)	n/a
20 Apr	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Arabella	Western Cape	400,000	(1)	n/a
5 May	Samsung Royal Swazi Sun Open	Swaziland	600,000	Des Terblanche (12)	n/a
11 May	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Pretoria	Gauteng	400,000	Hennie Otto (7)	n/a
19 May	Suncoast Classic	KwaZulu-Natal	400,000	Adilson da Silva (3)	n/a
10 Jun	Lombard Insurance Classic	Swaziland	350,000	Peter Karmis (1)	n/a		New tournament
15 Jun	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Selborne	KwaZulu-Natal	400,000	George Coetzee (1)	n/a
30 Jun	Nashua Golf Challenge	North West	400,000	Warren Abery (6)	n/a		New tournament
3 Aug	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Bloemfontein	Free State	400,000	Ulrich van den Berg (5)	n/a
24 Aug	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Fancourt	Western Cape	400,000	Adilson da Silva (4)	n/a
31 Aug	Telkom PGA Pro-Am	Gauteng	350,000	Michiel Bothma (2)	n/a
8 Sep		Gauteng	400,000	James Kamte (1)	n/a
28 Sep	Vodacom Origins of Golf Final	Eastern Cape	400,000	Titch Moore (6)	n/a
7 Oct	Bearing Man Highveld Classic	Mpumalanga	400,000	Marc Cayeux (8)	n/a
20 Oct	MTC Namibia PGA Championship	Namibia	700,000	Keith Horne (2)	n/a
27 Oct	Platinum Classic	North West	705,000	Louis Oosthuizen (4)	n/a
11 Nov	HSBC Champions	China	US$5,000,000	Phil Mickelson (n/a)	52	ANZ, ASA, EUR
22 Nov	Coca-Cola Charity Championship	Western Cape	500,000	Titch Moore (7)	n/a
28 Nov	Nedbank Affinity Cup	North West	500,000	(3)	n/a		New tournament
2 Dec	Nedbank Golf Challenge	North West	US$4,385,000	Trevor Immelman (5)	34
9 Dec	Alfred Dunhill Championship	Mpumalanga	€1,000,000	John Bickerton (n/a)	22	EUR
21 Dec	South African Airways Open	Western Cape	€1,000,000	James Kingston (8)	32	EUR	Flagship event

Order of Merit[]

Rank	Player[2]	Events	Prize Money (R)
1	James Kingston	10	1,980,689
2	Louis Oosthuizen	8	1,596,846
3	Andrew McLardy	5	1,387,475
4	Hennie Otto	20	1,331,376
5	Richard Sterne	5	966,547

Ernie Els was the fifth highest money winner (with R1,120,503.20) but did not qualify for the Order of Merit, having only played in three events. John Bickerton and Ariel Cañete were second and fourth respectively in the money list thanks to their victories in the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Joburg Open, but as non tour members, and having not entered sufficient events, they were also ineligible for the Order of Merit.

References[]

External links[]

• Official website