2008 Sunshine Tour

The 2008 Sunshine Tour was the ninth season of professional golf tournaments since the southern Africa based Sunshine Tour was relaunched in 2000, and the second 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 was based predominantly in South Africa, with 26 of the 30 tournaments being held in the country. Two events were held in Swaziland, with one each in Zambia and Namibia. There were two new tournaments, The Africa Open, which the tour hopes will become "Africa's Major" in the future, and the BMG Classic, founded by the Bearing Man Group, who wished to continue their involvement with the tour following the end of their long run as title sponsors of the Highveld Classic.

The order of merit was dominated by Richard Sterne, who won all three European Tour co-sanctioned tournaments, by far the richest on the tour.

Schedule

The table below shows schedule of events for the 2008 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. Since the tour switched to a calendar based season, this part of the tour has been split in two, with six events being held at the start of the year, and the remainder in December.

The Winter Swing ran from March to November, starting with the Mount Edgecombe Trophy, and closing with the Coca-Cola Charity Championship, hosted by Gary Player.

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
10–13 Jan	Joburg Open	Royal Johannesburg and Kensington GC	€1,000,000	Richard Sterne (3)	20	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
24–27 Jan	Dimension Data Pro-Am	Gary Player CC and Lost City GC, Sun City	€1,100,000	James Kamte (2)	14
31 Jan – 3 Feb	Nashua Masters	Wild Coast Sun CC	R1,200,000	Marc Cayeux (9)	14
7–10 Feb	The Africa Open	Fish River Sun CC	R1,200,000	Shaun Norris (1)	14	New event
14–17 Feb	Vodacom Championship	Pretoria CC	R2,400,000	James Kingston (10)	14
21–24 Feb	Telkom PGA Championship	The Country Club, Johannesburg	R2,500,000	Louis Oosthuizen (4)	14
28 Feb – 2 Mar	Mount Edgecombe Trophy	Mount Edgecombe GC	R500,000	Mark Murless (4)	n/a
28–30 Mar	Zambia Open	Lusaka, Zambia	R750,000	Tyrone Ferreira (1)	n/a
3–5 Apr	Vodacom Origins of Golf Free State	Bloemfontein GC	R440,000	Dion Fourie (2)	n/a
23–25 Apr	Vodacom Origins of Golf Gauteng	Pretoria CC	R440,000	Tyrone van Aswegen (1)	n/a
7–10 May	Samsung Royal Swazi Sun Open	Royal Swazi GC, Swaziland	R700,000	Jean Hugo (6)	n/a
15–17 May	Nashua Golf Challenge	Gary Player CC and Lost City GC, Sun City	R500,000	Keith Horne (3)	n/a
28–30 May	Vodacom Origins of Golf KwaZulu Natal	Selborne Hotel Spa and Golf Estate	R440,000	Jean Hugo (7)	n/a
6–8 Jun	Lombard Insurance Classic	Royal Swazi GC, Swaziland	R400,000	Merrick Bremner (1)	n/a
21–23 Aug	SAA Pro-Am Invitational	Paarl GC	R500,000	George Coetzee (2)	n/a
27–29 Aug	Vodacom Origins of Golf Western Cape	Arabella GC	R440,000	Garth Mulroy (1)	n/a
3–5 Sep	Telkom PGA Pro-Am	Centurion CC	R400,000	Merrick Bremner (2)	n/a
11–13 Sep	Suncoast Classic	Durban CC	R500,000	Jake Roos (1)	n/a
17–19 Sep	Vodacom Origins of Golf Eastern Cape	Humewood GC, Port Elizabeth	R440,000	George Coetzee (3)	n/a
2–4 Oct	Seekers Travel Pro-Am	Dainfern CC	R440,000	Trevor Fisher Jnr (3)	n/a
10–12 Oct	BMG Classic	Ebotse GC, Johannesburg	R500,000	Doug McGuigan (3)	n/a	New event
17–19 Oct	Metmar Highveld Classic	Witbank GC	R600,000	James Kamte (3)	n/a
22–24 Oct	Vodacom Origins of Golf Final	St Francis Links	R440,000	Jaco van Zyl (2)	n/a
30 Oct – 1 Nov	Platinum Classic	Mooinooi GC	R705,000	Thomas Aiken (7)	n/a
6–9 Nov	MTC Namibia PGA Championship	Windhoek Country Club, Namibia	R1,000,000	Tongoona Charamba (2)	n/a
25–27 Nov	Coca-Cola Charity Championship	The Outeniqua, Fancourt	R550,000	Garth Mulroy (2)	n/a
1–3 Dec	Nedbank Affinity Cup	Lost City GC, Sun City	R550,000	Tyrone van Aswegen (2)	n/a
4–7 Dec	Nedbank Golf Challenge	Gary Player CC, Sun City	$4,385,000	Henrik Stenson (N/A)	34
11–14 Dec	Alfred Dunhill Championship	Leopard Creek CC, Malelane	€1,000,000	Richard Sterne (4)	24	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
18–21 Dec	South African Open Championship	Pearl Valley Golf Estates	€1,000,000	Richard Sterne (5)	40	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour

Order of Merit

Rank	Player[2]	Country	Events	Prize Money (R)
1	Richard Sterne	South Africa	5	5,999,264.60
2	Garth Mulroy	South Africa	6	1,442,350.70
3	Thomas Aiken	South Africa	8	967,378.26
4	Mark Murless	South Africa	28	885,055.74
5	James Kingston	South Africa	7	775,903.20

England's Robert Rock was the third highest money winner (with R1,280,632.80) but did not qualify for the Order of Merit, having only played in two events.

References

External links

• Sunshine Tour - official site