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.

Dates	Tournament	Venue (RSA unless stated)	Prize fund	Winner	OWGR points	Notes
11–14 Jan	Joburg Open	Royal Johannesburg and Kensington GC	€1,000,000	Ariel Cañete (N/A)	20	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour New event
25–28 Jan	Dimension Data Pro-Am	Gary Player CC and Lost City GC, Sun City	R1,600,000	Louis Oosthuizen (1)	14
1–4 Feb	Nashua Masters	Wild Coast Sun CC	R1,200,000	Jean Hugo (5)	14
15–18 Feb	Vodacom Championship	Pretoria CC	R2,200,000	Richard Sterne (2)	14
22–25 Feb	Telkom PGA Championship	The Country Club, Johannesburg	R2,250,000	Louis Oosthuizen (2)	14
8–11 Mar	Mount Edgecombe Trophy	Mount Edgecombe GC	R500,000	Steve van Vuuren (7)		New event, last held in 1994
30 Mar – 1 Apr	Finance Bank Zambia Open	Ndola GC, Lusaka, Zambia	R750,000	Steve Basson (3)
13–15 Apr	Eskom Power Cup	Pecanwood Golf Estate	R400,000	Chris Swanepoel (1)
18–20 Apr	Vodacom Origins of Golf Arabella	Arabella GC	R400,000	Andrew Curlewis (1)
2–5 May	Samsung Royal Swazi Sun Open	Royal Swazi GC, Swaziland	R600,000	Des Terblanche (12)
9–11 May	Vodacom Origins of Golf Pretoria	Pretoria CC	R400,000	Hennie Otto (7)
17–19 May	Suncoast Classic	Durban CC	R400,000	Adilson da Silva (3)
8–10 Jun	Lombard Insurance Classic	Royal Swazi GC, Swaziland	R350,000	Peter Karmis (1)		New event
13–15 Jun	Vodacom Origins of Golf Selborne	Selborne Hotel Spa and Golf Estate	R400,000	George Coetzee (1)
28–30 Jun	Nashua Golf Challenge	Gary Player CC and Lost City GC, Sun City	R400,000	Warren Abery (6)		New event
1–3 Aug	Vodacom Origins of Golf Bloemfontein	Bloemfontein GC	R400,000	Ulrich van den Berg (5)
22–24 Aug	Vodacom Origins of Golf Fancourt	Fancourt GC	R400,000	Adilson da Silva (4)
29–31 Aug	Telkom PGA Pro-Am	Centurion CC	R350,000	Michiel Bothma (2)
6–8 Sep	Seekers Travel Pro-Am	Dainfern CC	R400,000	James Kamte (1)
26–28 Sep	Vodacom Origins of Golf Final	St Francis Links	R400,000	Titch Moore (6)
5–7 Oct	Bearing Man Highveld Classic	Witbank GC	R400,000	Marc Cayeux (8)
18–20 Oct	MTC Namibia PGA Championship	Windhoek Country Club, Namibia	R700,000	Keith Horne (2)
25–27 Oct	Platinum Classic	Mooinooi GC	R705,000	Louis Oosthuizen (3)
20–22 Nov	Coca-Cola Charity Championship	Arabella GC	R500,000	Titch Moore (7)
26–28 Nov	Nedbank Affinity Cup	Lost City GC, Sun City	R500,000	Mark Murless (3)		New event
29 Nov – 2 Dec	Nedbank Golf Challenge	Gary Player CC, Sun City	$4,385,000	Trevor Immelman (5)	34
6–9 Dec	Alfred Dunhill Championship	Leopard Creek CC, Malelane	€1,000,000	John Bickerton (N/A)	22	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
18–21 Dec	South African Airways Open	Pearl Valley Golf Estates	€1,000,000	James Kingston (9)	32	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour

Order of Merit

Rank	Player[2]	Country	Events	Prize Money (R)
1	James Kingston	South Africa	10	1,980,688.65
2	Louis Oosthuizen	South Africa	8	1,596,845.50
3	Andrew McLardy	South Africa	5	1,387,474.85
4	Hennie Otto	South Africa	20	1,331,375.79
5	Richard Sterne	South Africa	5	966,546.55

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

• Sunshine Tour - official site