2004–05 Sunshine Tour

The 2004–05 Sunshine Tour was the fifth 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 21 tournaments on the schedule. This was an increase of four from the previous year, primarily due to the addition of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour, a series of six regional tournaments that has been held every year since. The other new tournament was the MTC Namibia PGA Championship. The tour was based predominantly in South Africa, with 17 of the 21 tournaments being held in the country. Two events were held in Swaziland, and one event each was held in Botswana and Namibia. 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 Charl Schwartzel.

Schedule

The table below shows schedule of events for the 2004–05 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.

Year Dates Tournament Venue
(RSA unless stated)		 Prize fund
(R)		 Winner Notes Ref
2004 25–27 Mar FNB Botswana Open Gaborone Golf Club, Botswana 150,000 Zimbabwe Barry Painting [1]
2004 31 Mar – 2 Apr Parmalat Classic De Zalze Golf Club 125,000 England Justin Walters (1) [2]
2004 5–8 May Capital Alliance Royal Swazi Sun Open Royal Swazi Sun Country Club, Swaziland 300,000 South Africa Nic Henning (3) [3]
2004 27–29 May Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Pezula) Pezula Championship Course 200,000 South Africa Patrick O'Brien New tournament [4]
2004 10–12 Jun Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Schoeman Park) Schoeman Park Golf Club 200,000 South Africa Steve van Vuuren (6) New tournament [5]
2004 18–20 Jun Royal Swazi Sun Classic Royal Swazi Sun Country Club, Swaziland 200,000 South Africa Bradford Vaughan (4) Last year of this event [6]
2004 30 Jun – 2 Jul Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Zimbali) Zimbali Lodge & CC 200,000 South Africa Thomas Aiken (1) New tournament [7]
2004 21–23 Jul Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Sun City) Lost City Golf Course 200,000 South Africa Thomas Aiken (2) New tournament [8]
2004 17–19 Sep Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Arabella) Arabella Country Club 200,000 South Africa Louis Oosthuizen (1) New tournament [9]
2004 8–10 Oct Bearing Man Highveld Classic Witbank Golf Club 150,000 South Africa Divan van den Heever (1) [10]
2004 14–16 Oct Limpopo Eskom Classic Polokwane Golf Club 250,000 South Africa Bradford Vaughan (5) [11]
2004 19–21 Oct Vodacom Origins of Golf Championship The Links, Fancourt 200,000 South Africa Thomas Aiken (3) New tournament [12]
2004 28–30 Oct Platinum Classic Mooinooi Golf Club 300,000 South Africa Titch Moore (5) [13]
2004 4–6 Nov MTC Namibia PGA Championship Windhoek Country Club, Namibia 225,000 South Africa Mark Murless (2) New tournament [14]
2004 11–13 Nov Seekers Travel Pro-Am Dainfern Country Club 125,000 South Africa Ulrich van den Berg (3) [15]
2004 9–12 Dec Dunhill Championship Leopard Creek Country Club 2,800,000 South Africa Charl Schwartzel (1) Co-sanctioned with European Tour [16]
2005 20–23 Jan South African Airways Open Durban Country Club 2,300,000 South Africa Tim Clark (2) Co-sanctioned with European Tour [17]
2005 27–30 Jan Dimension Data Pro-Am Gary Player Country Club 550,000 England Simon Wakefield (1) [18]
2005 3–6 Feb Nashua Masters Wild Coast Sun Country Club 500,000 South Africa Richard Sterne (1) [19]
2005 17–20 Feb Telkom PGA Championship Woodhill Country Club 1,000,000 South Africa Warren Abery (3) [20]
2005 24–27 Feb Vodacom Tour Championship Country Club Johannesburg 1,000,000 Zimbabwe Marc Cayeux (7) [21]

Order of Merit

RankPlayer[22]CountryEventsPrize money (R)
1 Charl Schwartzel  South Africa 7 1,635,850.44
2 Neil Cheetham  England 5 732,962.58
3 Warren Abery  South Africa 21 704,836.61
4 Titch Moore  South Africa 13 490,267.71
5 Marc Cayeux  Zimbabwe 9 430,676.41

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, October 08, 2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.