The DP World Tour makes the short trip across Africa from Kenya back into South Africa this week for the SDC Championship, a tournament which is on the schedule for the second time and is the first of two weeks in this part of the world.
Matthew Baldwin enjoyed the debut staging of this tournament last year as he ran out the winner of the competition. The Englishman is in the field looking to make a successful defence of his crown but a competitive field will be out to stop him.
Recent Winners
2023 – Matthew Baldwin
The Course
The St Francis Golf Links on the Eastern Cape is the venue for the second running of this tournament, as it was the first. As the name would suggest this is a true links golf course which was designed by Jack Nicklaus. It is a par 72 which only measures 7,192 yards. This isn’t a course at extreme altitude but the weather is set to be warm so the ball will fly so the track probably won’t play to that full yardage. It doesn’t appear to be a track for the bombers.
All links courses need a different skillset to the other tracks. The primary thing to be successful on a links course is good scrambling but all Nicklaus designs test out every iron in the bag. Usually those who putt well go better than those who struggle on the greens on links tests as well so I’m looking for aggressive iron players who have a decent short game to make their way towards the summit of the leaderboard.
The Field
Clearly with some big tournaments in America on the horizon and the opening major of the year now just six weeks away, the fields on the DP World Tour are going to be more competitive rather than elite over the next few events and that is certainly the case this week. The field is elevated by the appearance of the defending champion Matthew Baldwin. Despite events elsewhere, we have five players in the top 100 of the world rankings on show this week.
The Qatar Masters champion Rikuya Hoshino is the highest ranked player while Thriston Lawrence, Jordan Smith, Zander Lombard and Keita Nakajima are the other players in that band. Hoshino and Lombard are the only players in the top 10 in the world rankings in the field this week but Dylan Frittelli, Ugo Coussaud, Jayden Schaper and Darren Fichardt are all in the top 20. Ewen Ferguson and Tom McKibbin are recent DP World Tour winners in the field this week.
Market Leaders
We have joint favourites in the tournament this week. They are the former Qatar Masters and ISPS Handa World Invitational winner Ewen Ferguson and the home star Zander Lombard. The latter has gone pretty well to start up the new season and was second in Bahrain not too long ago. He should be familiar with conditions but he couldn’t crack the top 40 here last year which is a concern. Ferguson was third here last year and has successive top 10 finishes coming into the event.
Two more players come next in the betting at 18/1. They are Tom McKibbin and another home star in the form of Thriston Lawrence. McKibbin was a DP World Tour winner last year and he was in the top 20 here a year ago. He arrives off the back of four top 25 finishes in succession heading into the week. Lawrence was second in Dubai last month and he was in the top 15 in this tournament last year and has four wins at this level under his belt so he is hard to ignore.
The next two in the betting come at 22/1 in the market and they are the Qatar Masters champion Rikuya Hoshino and the DP World Tour regular Antoine Rozner. Rozner has gone well in recent times without getting his nose in front. He was in a tie for third here last year so he should be confident of his chances. He might not have as much confidence as Hoshino though, with the Japanese player having won the Qatar Masters three weeks ago. Both look to have chances here.
There are just two other players who are shorter than 28/1 for the week and they are the other leading Japanese player on the DP World Tour in Keita Nakajima and Jordan Smith. Smith was fourth in Dubai but hasn’t been in the greatest touch since and didn’t really go that well here a year ago. Nakajima was fourth at the Ras Al Khaimah Championship last month but he plays this tournament for the first time which might be a negative.
Main Bets
Adrian Otaegui has won on a links course in the past and I think he has to be considered as a leading contender in this field. Admittedly, his putting probably isn’t at the same level it was at when he won the Scottish Championship four years ago but he was fourth in Kenya last week which suggests that every other part of his game is in decent order. I regularly point out that Otaegui is at the stage of his career where he probably isn’t going to be a factor on the courses setup for bombers, but there is nothing to suggest that this is one of them, so I expect him to go pretty well here. The Spaniard has four wins on the DP World Tour to his name and that is more than most in this field. There were enough signs in Kenya last week that he is trending in the right direction and at the price he is a fairly obvious pick for me here.
I took Nacho Elvira in the Qatar Masters a couple of weeks ago where he gave me a decent run for my money, albeit without a return. He was T13 there and then built on that at the Kenya Open last week where he finished second and I suspect he is trending towards winning something. He was T23 here last year but basically shot himself in the foot with an opening 74 so if he can get off to a better start there is no reason at all why he can’t go well here. Elvira has some good pieces of links form and tends to go well on exposed tracks such as in Qatar and in Denmark and I think there is a route for him to outrun his price this week.
Outsiders
Dylan Frittelli was a winner in Bahrain recently and I think he is overpriced to go well back in his homeland. It has to be said that he has disappointed in two efforts since winning in Bahrain but we shouldn’t hold that against him too much because he has played on fiddly tracks where he can’t really let his driver go like he can on a links course here. Frittelli has bits of links form on his resume having finished fifth in The Open in 2021 and he has won in Mauritius so he can handle the breeze and the variance that comes with coastal golf. This is a terribly weak field compared to what he has been used to competing in on the PGA Tour and his win in Bahrain should have done something for his confidence so at the prices I’ll pay to see how he goes here.
The other man I want to back is Jamie Donaldson. He is very hit or miss these days but the nuances of links golf could bring his hit side out here, or at least I hope that is the case. He has some form over the links events. He has a number of good finishes in the Dunhill Links and in the Scottish Open and both will have much better fields than the one he goes up against here. Donaldson hasn’t pulled up any trees this season by any means but towards the end of last season he posted -11 at the Omega European Masters and -10 in three rounds of the Dunhill Links so he can still golf his ball when things fall right. He hasn’t been great this year but in two of his last three events he has opened with successive under par rounds before a shocker of a third round. If he can piece four rounds together there is no reason he can’t run well in a very average field.
Tips
Back A.Otaegui to win SDC Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back N.Elvira to win SDC Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 41.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-8)
Back J.Donaldson to win SDC Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 151.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-8)
Back them here:
Back D.Frittelli to win SDC Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 81.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
