The International Swing leg of the DP World Tour season comes to a close this week when the tour remains in South Africa for the Joburg Open, an event which is co-sanctioned with the Sunshine Tour and should be a competitive heat.
Dean Burmester enjoyed himself in this tournament last season when he took the title down on home soil but he is competing in Hong Kong on the LIV Tour this week so we are guaranteed a different winner of the event.
Recent Winners
2023 – Dean Burmester
2022 – Dan Bradbury
2021 – Thriston Lawrence
2020 – JB Hansen
2017-18 – Shubhankar Sharma
2017 – Darren Fichardt
2016 – Haydn Porteous
2015 – Andy Sullivan
2014 – George Coetzee
2013 – Richard Sterne
The Course
We are back at the Houghton Golf Club in Johannesburg for the third time this week. The course has previously held the South African Open and the South African PGA Championship and now it gets to host the Joburg Open for the third time. It is a parkland course which is treelined and plays as a par 72 with a yardage of 7,241 yards, although it should be said that it doesn’t play anything like as long as that because we are at altitude this week.
Although the course is treelined the fairways are said to be on the generous side but there is water in play throughout this course so while there isn’t too much of a demand off the tee other than distance control in the altitude, the winner this week will be separated from the rest of the field when they have irons in hand. You often need to putt well in this part of the world as well. It was a low scoring event last year and is likely to be the same again here.
The Field
I think it is fair to say that the field is a competitive one this week rather than a standout one. We only have two players ranked inside the top 100 in the world, which isn’t a surprise given that it is The Players Championship in America next week. Those two players are ranked 93 and 97 which highlights the relative lack of quality in the field. They are the Mauritius champion John Parry and the consistent French player Romain Langasque.
Parry is the leading light in terms of the Race to Dubai standings this week too but four other players who are in the top 10 in that list are in the field looking to boost their position. They include the home trio of Shaun Norris, Dylan Naidoo and Jacques Kruyswijk, the latter two of whom have won the last two DP World Tour events. Johannes Veerman is the other in that bracket. Alejandro del Rey, Ryggs Johnston, Jayden Schaper and Ivan Cantero are all in the top 15 and could make a move with a big week here.
Market Leaders
It is 20/1 the field in the Joburg Open this week with the home star Jayden Schaper being the favourite to land a title on home soil. He has shown plenty of good form in recent times with his last three tournaments yielding a results run of T5-4-T16 and he has been pretty consistent on this course too with T18 and T9 finishes in the last two seasons. The obvious negative regarding the 23-year-old though is that he hasn’t won at this level and that is enough to put me off at the prices.
Jordan Smith is a 25/1 poke to land the tournament this week. I always think he is often much shorter in the betting than he should be because he is such a good ball striker but his putter rarely cooperates to the same level. Smith hasn’t had the best start to 2025 and he hasn’t been seen since he withdrew from the Qatar Masters last month so that is clearly a concern. Another issue is that he is on debut around here in this event so when you put all that together he isn’t for me.
Three other men are shorter than 33/1 in the betting this week and they can all be taken at 28/1 on the best prices at the time of writing. They are Johannes Veerman, Shaun Norris and John Parry. Veerman won the Nedbank Golf Classic at the back end of last year but he has had a bang ordinary start to 2025. Norris arrives here with three top 10 finishes in his last five starts and had a top 20 here two seasons ago. Parry has won in Mauritius this season and was second in Kenya a fortnight ago but he tackles this course for the first time this week.
Main Bets
John Parry has been on my radar for a while, not just because he won for me in Mauritius but because these tracks in Africa suit him, as we saw in Kenya a couple of weeks ago when he finished second in that tournament. With the amount of rain there was in Durban last week the course probably played a little long for him but that certainly isn’t going to be the case this week so there is reason to believe he can put up another strong showing. In an ideal world he would have played the course before but that is only a minor negative for me. Parry is high up on the approach stats on the DP World Tour this season and if the putter warms up he shouldn’t be too far away.
Joost Luiten was flirting with a top 10 finish in Durban last week when the tournament got cut short and the fact that he played well enough there inspires confidence that he could run well in conditions that should suit him. He has always been a wonderful iron player which is the main requirement around here and with a top 20 finish in Bahrain recently too there is enough to suggest that the Dutchman isn’t just hitting the ball well but is putting well enough too. On a treelined track where accuracy is more important than length, Luiten has every chance of going well here.
Outsiders
Darren Fichardt led the way after 18 holes last week on a soft course where he probably didn’t get the help off the ground which could have made him even more of a danger but he isn’t going to have that issue this week and given that he was fourth in strokes gained on approach over the course of the week I have to get involved here. This isn’t a track where he is going to lose anything to the field in terms of distance off the tee and with the other areas of his game looking in decent order I think the South African is well worth chancing here.
Dale Whitnell had an incredible round last week when he made two aces and while it is fortunate for two iron shots to find the hole off of the tee, it does show that when the chance to be aggressive with the irons came along he was able to do it and aggressive and quality iron play is generally what elevates a player up the leaderboard here. Whitnell was sixth here a couple of seasons ago, which highlights how his iron play can deliver the goods for him and he was seventh in the Alfred Dunhill Championship earlier in the season so there is something about South Africa that gets him going. He could be a big price this week.
Tips
Back J.Parry to win Joburg Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
Back J.Luiten to win Joburg Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back D.Fichardt to win Joburg Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 71.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-7)
Back D.Whitnell to win Joburg Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 111.00 with Paddy Power (1/5 1-7)
