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ZIMBABWEAN Brendon de Jonge will make a return to South Africa after 16-years when he takes part in the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek Country Club in Mpumalanga, South Africa today. The PGA Tour campaigner may be stamping his passport more regularly for trips here and around the world in 2014.
Three Zimbabweans Greg Bentley, Micky Hough and Mohammad Rauf Mandhu failed to make it in the pre-qualifiers of the event which were held yesterday.
It will be only De Jonge and Ryan Cairns who will be expected to fly the country’s flag high when they take to the field.
The Zimbabweans will tee off at the same time but at different tee boxes with Cairns a Sunshime Tour winner teeing off with Michael Hoey of Nigeria and Richard Finch of England while De Jonge will have South africa’s Garth Mulroy and Englishman Tom Lewis.
De Jonge was making his debut in the European Tour co-sanctioned Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek this week, joining a field including two-time champion Charl Schwartzel and double major champion John Daly.
The reigning sportsperson of the year is in South Africa on the back of a successful 2013 on the PGA Tour in which he claimed four top-10s and closed out the season in style when he made it into all four of the FedEx Cup Playoff tournaments, finishing within the top 20 in each.
He told Sunshine Tour that he puts those performances down to feeling much more at home on the PGA Tour this year. “A lot of it was a comfort level. I’ve played for seven years on the PGA Tour now and you get to know the courses better and the towns. Everything becomes a bit easier. That’s had a big part to play in it,” De Jonge said.
And now he wants to take his game worldwide in 2014.
“I took affiliate membership on the European Tour for this coming season so I’m going to try and play a bit more globally. I think it rounds off your game. The kind of golf is so different to what we’re used to playing in America. Everything’s in the air in America, whereas on the European Tour the conditions can get windy and firm. It’s a different kind of golf and very refreshing.”
De Jonge’s first foray into a more global schedule saw him finish tied seventh in the recent Australian Masters and tied 12th in the individual event of the World Cup of Golf in Melbourne. All of which bodes well for his first showing in this week’s Alfred Dunhill Championship.
“This is a special place. The course looks hard and I think it will be a good test. I’m looking forward to it.” added De Jonge
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