2010 Sunshine Tour

The 2010 Sunshine Tour was the 11th season of professional golf tournaments since the southern Africa based Sunshine Tour was relaunched in 2000, and the 4th since the tour switched a calendar based season in 2007. The Sunshine Tour represents the highest level of competition for male professional golfers in the region.

The tour is based predominantly in South Africa with other events being held in neighbouring countries, including Swaziland, Zambia and Namibia.

The Order of Merit was won by Charl Schwartzel.^[1]

Schedule[]

The table below shows schedule of events for the 2010 Sunshine Tour.^[2] As usual, the tour consisted of two distinct parts, commonly referred to as the "Summer Swing" and the "Winter Swing". Tournaments held during the Summer Swing generally have much higher prize funds, attract stronger fields, and are the only tournaments on the tour to carry world ranking points, with some events being co-sanctioned with the European Tour. Since the tour switched to a calendar based season, this part of the tour has been split in two, with some events being held at the start of the year, and the remainder in December. The Winter Swing ran from April to early December.

Prize funds shown do 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	Prize fund (R)	Winner	OWGR points	Other tours[a]	Notes
10 Jan	Africa Open	Eastern Cape	€1,000,000	Charl Schwartzel (3)	20	EUR
17 Jan	Joburg Open	Gauteng	€1,300,000	Charl Schwartzel (4)	22	EUR
14 Feb	Dimension Data Pro-Am	Western Cape	3,000,000	Darren Fichardt (10)	14
21 Feb	Telkom PGA Championship	Gauteng	3,000,000	Michiel Bothma (3)	14
28 Feb	Vodacom Championship	Gauteng	2,650,000	Hennie Otto (9)	14
16 Apr	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Gardener Ross	Gauteng	510,000	Jean Hugo (8)	n/a
24 Apr	Africom Zimbabwe Open	Zimbabwe	1,200,000	Jbe' Kruger (2)	14
30 Apr	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Sishen	Free State	510,000	Jaco van Zyl (6)	n/a
8 May	Investec Royal Swazi Open	Swaziland	750,000	Keith Horne (4)	n/a
15 May	Nashua Golf Challenge	North West	500,000	Jaco van Zyl (7)	n/a
6 Jun	Lombard Insurance Classic	Swaziland	700,000	Grant Muller (2)	n/a
30 Jul	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Humewood	Eastern Cape	510,000	Ulrich van den Berg (6)	n/a
20 Aug	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Selborne	KwaZulu-Natal	510,000	James Kingston (10)	n/a
29 Aug	Zambia Open	Zambia	850,000	Adilson da Silva (6)	n/a
3 Sep	Telkom PGA Pro-Am	Gauteng	500,000	Jaco van Zyl (8)	n/a
11 Sep		Gauteng	500,000	(2)	n/a
18 Sep	Vodacom Origins of Golf at Stellenbosch	Western Cape	510,000	Jean Hugo (9)	n/a
25 Sep		Western Cape	500,000	Jaco van Zyl (9)	n/a
2 Oct		KwaZulu-Natal	500,000	Michiel Bothma (4)	n/a
15 Oct	Vodacom Origins of Golf Final	Western Cape	510,000	Justin Harding (1)	n/a
24 Oct	Suncoast Classic	KwaZulu-Natal	500,000	Adilson da Silva (7)	n/a
30 Oct	Platinum Classic	North West	705,000	Jean Hugo (10)	n/a
7 Nov	Nashua Masters	Eastern Cape	1,200,000	Warren Abery (7)	14
14 Nov	BMG Classic	Gauteng	550,000	Brandon Pieters (4)	n/a
18 Nov	Coca-Cola Charity Championship	Western Cape	550,000	Branden Grace (1)	n/a
5 Dec	Nedbank Golf Challenge	North West	US$5,000,000	Lee Westwood (n/a)	34
12 Dec	Alfred Dunhill Championship	Mpumalanga	€1,000,000	Pablo Martín (n/a)	20	EUR
19 Dec	South African Open Championship	KwaZulu-Natal	€1,000,000	Ernie Els (18)	32	EUR	Flagship event

Order of Merit[]

Rank	Player[3]	Events	Prize Money (R)
1	Charl Schwartzel	6	5,097,913.58
2	Thomas Aiken	7	1,959,542.78
3	Keith Horne	12	1,904,949.69
4	Jbe' Kruger	16	1,768,631.59
5	Louis Oosthuizen	7	1,392,835.00

Ernie Els was ineligible for the Order of Merit having only played in two tournaments during the season. The R1,467,200 he earned from those events would have been enough for 5th place.

References[]

External links[]

• Official website