2005–06 Sunshine Tour

The 2005–06 Sunshine Tour was the sixth 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.

As in the previous year, there were 21 tournaments on the schedule. The Royal Swazi Sun Classic was last held in 2004, and the Telkom PGA Pro-Am was added in 2005. The tour was based predominantly in South Africa, with 18 of the 21 tournaments being held in the country. One event each was held in Botswana, Swaziland and Namibia. Two tournaments, the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the South African Airways Open were co-sanctioned by the European Tour.

The Order of Merit was won for the second straight time by Charl Schwartzel.

Schedule

The table below shows schedule of events for the 2005–06 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.

Year	Dates	Tournament	Venue (RSA unless stated)	Prize fund (R)	Winner	Notes	Ref
2005	17–19 Mar	FNB Botswana Open	Phakalane GC, Botswana	150,000	Nico van Rensburg (6)		[1]
2005	7–9 Apr	Parmalat Classic	Paarl Golf Glub	200,000	Ulrich van den Berg (4)		[2]
2005	4–7 May	Capital Alliance Royal Swazi Sun Open	Royal Swazi Sun Country Club, Swaziland	400,000	Hendrik Buhrmann (8)		[3]
2005	11–13 May	Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Pretoria)	Pretoria Country Club	200,000	Desvonde Botes (10)		[4]
2005	25–27 May	Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Pezula)	Pezula Championship Course	200,000	Desvonde Botes (11)		[5]
2005	29 Jun – 1 Jul	Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Wild Coast Sun)	Wild Coast Sun Country Club	200,000	Dean Lambert		[6]
2005	24–26 Aug	Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Bloemfontein)	Bloemfontein Golf Club	200,000	Nic Henning (4)		[7]
2005	31 Aug – 2 Sep	Telkom PGA Pro-Am	Centurion CC	150,000	Thomas Aiken (4)	New tournament	[8]
2005	7–9 Sep	Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour (Erinvale)	Erinvale Golf Club	200,000	Hennie Otto (6)		[9]
2005	29 Sep – 1 Oct	Seekers Travel Pro-Am	Dainfern Country Club	150,000	Anton Haig (1)		[10]
2005	7–9 Oct	Bearing Man Highveld Classic	Witbank Golf Club	200,000	Bradford Vaughan (6)		[11]
2005	13–15 Oct	MTC Namibia PGA Championship	Windhoek Country Club, Namibia	250,000	Thomas Aiken (5)		[12]
2005	19–21 Oct	Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour Championship	The Links, Fancourt	200,000	Steve Basson		[13]
2005	27–29 Oct	Platinum Classic	Mooinooi Golf Club	300,000	Jaco Van Zyl (1)		[14]
2005	17–20 Nov	Limpopo Classic	Polokwane Golf Club	500,000	Bradford Vaughan (7)		[15]
2005	8–11 Dec	Dunhill Championship	Leopard Creek Country Club	€1,000,000	Ernie Els (14)	Co-sanctioned with European Tour	[16]
2005	15–18 Dec	South African Airways Open	The Links, Fancourt	€1,000,000	Retief Goosen (8)	Co-sanctioned with European Tour	[17]
2006	26–29 Jan	Dimension Data Pro-Am	Gary Player Country Club	500,000	Alan McLean (2)		[18]
2006	2–5 Feb	Nashua Masters	Wild Coast Sun Country Club	500,000	Warren Abery (4)		[19]
2006	16–19 Feb	Telkom PGA Championship	Country Club Johannesburg	1,000,000	Grégory Bourdy (1)		[20]
2006	23–26 Feb	Vodacom Tour Championship	Pretoria Country Club	1,250,000	Charl Schwartzel (2)		[21]

Order of Merit

Rank	Player[22]	Country	Events	Prize money (R)
1	Charl Schwartzel	South Africa	6	1,207,459.70
2	Grégory Bourdy	France	6	936,394.20
3	Louis Oosthuizen	South Africa	4	842,091.85
4	Thomas Aiken	South Africa	20	779,565.85
5	Darren Fichardt	South Africa	7	763,324.20

References

External links

• Sunshine Tour - official site