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Online Reporter
The Sunshine Tour takes full swing with a huge event in Zimbabwe this month.
The FBC Zimbabwe Golf Open, a R2,5million signature event, is attracting some top names this year. The biggest names and best golfers on the Sunshine Tour will tee it up at this tournament from May 5-12 at the upmarket Royal Harare Gol Club in Harare, and this list of top 12 golfers and profiles will assist you as you begin your preparations for the huge watch and wager event.
A total of 144 players will navigate Royal Harare’s hazards and water on 18 holes at the 7130 yards-yard Par -2 course—home of the Sunshine Tour. Built in 1901 and whose architects include Fred Hawtree (1950) Steve Smyers (1997) and Nick Price (1997).
That includes the famed island Par 3 at No. 17. The FBC Zimbabwe Golf Open is among the hardest events in golf to predict, so instead of trying to just pick one winner, let’s attempt to thin the pool from the rest of this monster field. The event has seen plenty of intriguing success in producing major-caliber champions, and it sure seems like that will again be the case in 2024.
The last several winners and the top losers have all been names — Neil Schietekat, Jacques P. de Villiers, Stefan Wears-Taylor, Jaco Ahlers, Albert Venter – but who are other players in the top 10? Well, this week B- Metro tries to identify them before the tournament starts. In just the last three editions of this event, the following golfers have featured prominently on the leaderboard: Neil Schietekat, Jaco Ahlers, Jacques P. de Villiers, Peter Karmis, Albert Venter, Louis Albertse, Stefan Wears-Taylor, Bryce Easton, Daniel van Tonder, J. C. Ritchie and Trevor Fisher Jnr.
On the local front, Zimbabwe’s top five players have confirmed their availability with Robson Chinhoi who won the Zambia Open last year on the card as are Asian Tour and Sunshine Tour campaigners Ben Follet-Smith and Stuart Krog.
FBC Zimbabwe Golf tournament director, Mike Mahachi had this to say about the field at this year’s event: “I think we have a good chance and this year we have a strong field of 35 local players before the pre-qualifiers. We are grateful to FBC Holdings and all the sponsors for the tournament so is to Royal Harare who have been working hard to see that the course is in good shape,” said Mahachi.
The tournament will see several world-class players like 2011 winner Darren Fitchard for once featuring along with his son Devon, who finished fifth at the recently held First Capital Junior Championships at the weekend.
The Fitchards will have full exemptions at the tournament with Darren a five-time Sunshine Tour winner, who is also playing in the DP World Tour formerly European Tour, playing alongside his son.
Online Reporter