JOHANNESBURG: South Africa will host the most events on the 2013 European Tour after the Sunshine Tour announced two new co-sanctioned tournaments on Tuesday.
The Nelson Mandela Championship, to be staged in association with the former South African president’s Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, will be held Dec. 6-9 and the Tshwane Open will take place Feb. 28 to March 3.
The two new events bring to six the number of tournaments to
be played in South Africa in next year’s Race to Dubai.
The Tshwane Open at the Els Club Copperleaf will have prizemoney of 1.5 million euro ($1.9 million), meaning the winner will gain a two-year exemption on the European Tour.
The purse for the Nelson Mandela Championship has yet to be finalized but Sunshine Tour executive director Selwyn Nathan said it would be “a minimum of one million euro.”
“I’m particularly excited that we have another two European Tour co-sanctioned events as it shows the confidence one of the two major tours in the world has in us,” Nathan said.
The venue for the Nelson Mandela Championship has yet to be finalized but Nathan said it would be held at one of two coastal courses — the Royal Durban Golf Club or Humewood in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape.
The Tshwane municipality’s executive mayor, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, said his council were guaranteeing 44 million rand ($5.24 million) per annum for their tournament until the
Sunshine Tour could find sufficient sponsors.
The Sunshine Tour also announced that the prizemoney for the Alfred Dunhill Championship, to be played at Leopard Creek from Dec. 13-16, has been increased to 1.5 million euro.
South Africa launches two new European Tour events
