Following Casey Jarvis claiming the Magical Kenya Open in emphatic style, the DP World Tour heads to the Western Cape this week for the second instalment of this three-stop visit to Africa. What makes this week particularly special, however, is that the prize on offer is the prestigious Investec South African Open Championship, one of the oldest national championships in the world, with a list of former champions that reads as a who’s who of South African golfing royalty. What’s unique about this particular instalment of the Rainbow Nation’s oldest prize, however, is that after a 27-year-long absence, the South African Open returns to Stellenbosch Golf Club, a track that last hosted the Open all the way back in 1999.

Nestled at the foot of the majestic Helderberg Mountains, Stellenbosch – as the fourth-oldest course in the country – is about as classic a parkland course as you can imagine. Narrow, tree-lined fairways with blind sight lines off some of the tees. Thick Kikuyu rough to snaffle up loose tee shots. And small, well-bunkered Bentgrass greens that put a premium on not only hitting the putting surface, but hitting them in the correct place to avoid getting swallowed up by the undulations. Add to that the fact that the course has undergone significant upgrades to stretch it from 6,917 yards out to 7,268 yards, and you get the impression that we might just see the field presented with a far sterner test than what they faced at the Magical Kenya Open last week.

Because when you look at that previous visit the South African Open paid to Stellenbosch before the turn of the Millennium, the winning score that week was a mere -5, with only seven other players joining the eventual winner, David Frost, in getting into the red. And, to me, that’s the ultimate compliment to any golf course. That speaks to a heritage of being a proper challenge, of really testing these guys to see who is, indeed, the best golfer over four gruelling days. And when you factor in the improvements that have been made to Stellenbosch, those efforts to lengthen it and bring it up to the standard of the modern-day professional game, that to me indicates a desire to not only preserve that heritage, but to make an argument for this historic track to be brought back into the rota for this most prestigious of championships. Because you can’t buy the kind of legacy that these old championships have. There’s no manufacturing it. No shortcuts. And going by the work they’ve done, the powers that be at Stellenbosch have cut no corners in ensuring that the South African Open gets the best stage possible.

Of course, we won’t know for certain what kind of fight Stellenbosch will put up until play gets underway on Thursday, how she’ll contend with the power and skill of modern tour pros. But with windy conditions forecasted for the weekend, this week might just see the Investec South African Open get the tough competition it deserves.

Because, whilst the consistent aching in my lower back these days tells me that 1999 was, indeed, a long time ago, it’s never too late to try and turn back the clock.

THE ORACLES’ FOURBALL

JAYDEN SCHAPER

Before Patrick Reed’s utter domination of the desert portion of the International Swing, not only had Jayden Schaper been the only player with multiple wins under his belt this season – going back-to-back at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open – but he had been, without question, the most consistent player on tour, as evidenced by his previous holding of the number one spot in the Race to Dubai.

And, yes, we can look at his solid driving (18th in SG: Off the Tee & 45th in Accuracy) and the fact that he’s been hitting a ton of greens (20th in GIR%) as the building blocks of Jayden’s consistency this season. But it’s with the putter in hand that has seen him kick onto that next level in terms of winning and competing on a weekly basis. 1st in SG: Putting. 2nd in Putts per GIR. T-7 in Putts per Round. 13th in One Putts. 13th in Three Putt Avoidance. No matter where you look when it comes to the flatstick, Jayden is right there across the board.

So, when I see the young South African, fresh off a much-needed rest, heading to Stellenbosch this week to compete for his national championship – on a track where his accuracy and hot putter should see him excel –it just seems perfectly set up for the young star to give the home crowd the performance they’ll be yearning for. Because this year, as opposed to showing up as a promising young talent with buckets of potential, he’ll be arriving at the Open as an established 24-year-old, two-time winner on the DP World Tour. And, as he showed already back in December, now that he knows that he can win? If Jayden is down on the tee sheet for a tournament, he’s going to be a threat.

BRANDEN GRACE

As we all know, before he made the jump to LIV in 2022, Branden Grace was one of the DP World Tour’s most consistent performers as a nine-time winner. Since he went to LIV, though, Branden has carried on that form that saw him sought out by the Saudi outfit in the first place. An individual win. A team win with the rest of the South African LIV cohort in the shape of the Southern Guards. Multiple top-10 finishes. A runner-up finish in the overall individual standings back in 2023. Basically, Branden has just continued to do ‘Branden Grace Things’ – namely, making money.

Therefore, when you see him coming off two back-to-back top-10s in the opening pair of LIV events in Riyadh and Adelaide – doing so, in part, to his renowned accuracy both off the tee (T-14 in Driving Accuracy) and with the irons in hand (T-6 in GIR%) – one has to imagine that Branden could well be a threat this week. Because if you look down through that list of nine wins on the DP World Tour, Branden has won every single major African tournament there is. The Joburg Open. The Alfred Dunhill Championship. Gary Player’s Nedbank Golf Challenge. And, just before he jumped ship to LIV, the South African Open itself in 2020. On every single roll of honour for those tournaments, you’ll see the name Branden Grace. He’s just a prolific winner on South African soil. It’s what he does.

So, to see him going to Stellenbosch this week, a classic course suited to his blend of accuracy and solid putting, there’s no reason why Branden can’t replicate his most recent returns to the DP World Tour by making a run at adding a second South African Open to that already impressive résumé.

ANTOINE ROZNER

Whilst almost giving the nod to the in-form Oliver Lindell, I decided that his participation in the Magical Kenya Open last week might just have Antoine Rozner feeling a little more ‘tournament sharp’ heading into Stellenbosch this week than the Finn.

Because, overall, it’s been a steady start to the season for the Frenchman. Seven events. Five cuts made. Two top-10s and two top-20s. That’s good going by any definition. And what makes it particularly impressive is that he’s doing this off the back of the disappointment of losing his PGA Tour card last season. That would hurt anyone. But, as opposed to wallowing, Antoine has dusted himself off and come back fighting. He’s not quite at the level that saw him win three times between 2020 and 2022 – one of which included a win at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open – but, at this stage of the season, it’s all about steady progression.

So, whilst Antoine’s statistics, on paper, might not make for the most enthralling of reads right now (ranking 5th in SG: Approach being his best), all that matters to me is that I’ve been regularly seeing his name floating around the business end of leaderboards. Sometimes it might only be for a round or two, yes, but that sustained consistency will come. Again, that’s what these early swings are all about.

Therefore, with an early tee-time on Thursday, if Antoine can get off to a solid start and put himself in position early, he has all the ability and the experience to get the win this week. Because he already proved that he can get to the PGA Tour once. And whilst it might not have ended in the manner he would’ve liked, in Antoine’s own words, “Failure is feedback. It’s an experiment that produced a result you didn’t want. It only stays a failure if you stop there.”

Well, as we’ve seen, Antoine Rozner hasn’t stopped.

The experiment is ongoing. Now, he just needs to find another breakthrough.

GREGORIO DE LEO

Hunger and drive are not the same thing. Because you can be hungry for success, but without drive, it’s merely wishful thinking. Drive is what makes you put in the hard yards. Drive is what makes you do whatever it takes to get to wherever it is you want to go. And never do you need a delusional level of drive more than when trying to make it as a professional golfer. The depth of talent that it requires to simply make it onto one of the developmental tours, let alone the likes of the DP World Tour or PGA Tour, is barely comprehensible to those of us teeing it up every weekend at our local courses.

Yet, when you see someone like Gregorio De Leo making it into the field this week, that’s exactly what the young Italian has done. Starting out on the Alps Tour, three wins in 2022 saw Gregorio quickly promoted to the European Challenge Tour (now the HotelPlanner Tour), wherein he stood out as one of the most consistent players over a couple of seasons. Eager to expedite his ascension to the big leagues, though, in 2024, Gregorio entered Q-School and duly earned his DP World Tour card for the 2025 season. And whilst the Italian didn’t have the best of seasons, finishing 130th in the ‘Race to Dubai’, the important thing was that he, at least, maintained his playing privileges.

This year, though, has seen a marked improvement in Gregorio’s form. In the six events he has played since the beginning of the season, the 25-year-old has made the cut in five of them, amassing one top-10 in Qatar and two top-25s in the process – one of which came last week in Kenya. It’s been a steady start, undoubtedly, one that has seen him make the most of what starts he’s been entitled to, and calls to the attitude that he has of someone who knows that professional golf is all about embracing the grind.

And it’s that willingness to put in the work, to go out and make something happen for himself, that sees me looking at Gregorio to perhaps do something special this week. Because this week’s Investec South African Open Championship was not one of the tournaments that Gregorio was entitled to play off the back of his finish in the ‘Race to Dubai’ last season – nor, in fact, is the Joburg Open next week. Yet, instead of waiting for the next event that he does automatically qualify for, Gregorio took the gamble of going down to Africa and earning his way into the field this week, doing so by winning one of three qualifiers that took place in and around the Stellenbosch area on Tuesday.

So, whilst simply making the cut this week and earning back what money it cost to travel to Africa in the first place would, I’m sure, count as a success, Gregorio strikes me as the kind of player who’s not going to Stellenbosch to make up the numbers. Because he knows that if he can bag a high enough finish on the Western Cape, there’s a chance he’ll qualify for Johannesburg next week. Therefore, all that remains to be seen now is whether or not he can go out there and actually do it. Because we know that he has the hunger. We know that he has the drive. But now it’s time to prove, once again, that he has the game to back it all up.