Best bets
2.5pts each-way Will Zalatoris @ 16/1
1.5pts each-way Max Homa @ 12/1
1pt each-way Thorbjorn Olesen @ 14/1
0.5pt each-way Sebastian Soderberg @ 28/1
Top South African
1pt each-way Robin Williams @ 9/1
Top GB & Irish
1pt each-way Tom McKibbin @ 6/1
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When the Million Dollar Challenge first launched in a fever of excitement in 1981, it brought the five greatest golfers, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Seve Ballesteros and Johnny Miller, on the planet to Sun City and put Africa’s gambling capital spectacularly on the map.
Miller beat Ballesteros in a nine-hole playoff that week for the $500,000 first prize but by the end of century a million dollars weren’t enough and Ernie Els brought his wheelbarrow along to carry away two $2m payouts as champion in 2000 and 2002.
The Million Dollar tag was dropped and the tournament became simply the Nedbank Challenge for the 2000 edition, the prize money settled down as it became harder and harder to get the marquee names when so many other attractions popped up.
Now it’s still ‘Africa’s Major’, as the locals like to call it, and it has become a DP World Tour event but with still a handsome $6m pot and a $1.02m top prize, tempting enough this year to attract a handful of PGA Tour names, last year’s winner Max Homa, on a recovery mission after a disappointing 2024, Will Zalatoris, runner-up in three Majors but whose glittering career had stalled because of injury, and Canadian aces Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes.
The job at hand: the monster Gary Player Country Club course, a par 72 measuring 7819 yards. Short hitters, you would think, have no chance. Wrong. Because at altitude it plays far shorter than its length. The roll of honour is littered with winners like Jim Furyk, Corey Pavin, David Frost, Tommy Fleetwood, Alex Noren, Trevor Immelman and Mark McNulty who would be closer to bottom than the top on the long-driving league table. This is a tournament that typically goes to great iron players.
Finding a favourite is almost as hard as finding the winner. Fitzdares have come up with Conners at 10/1. He certainly has the right tee-to-green credentials but is not one to trust with your life over a five-foot putt for victory. The Canadian hasn’t a great year either – all the visitors are in the same boat, wanting to get an overdue W on their record for the year.
Zalatoris was always going to be playing catch-up after losing seven months of 2023 because of a serious back issue. He came back too early, struggled for a while, then picked up with second at Riviera, fourth at Bay Hill and ninth at Augusta.
More recently two top-15s in the FedEx Cup playoffs at St Jude and the BMW hinted that the 28-year-old Californian is close enough to his best to be worth chancing at 16/1. Much will depend on his unorthodox putting. If he converts those birdie chances he sets up, he could easily, as Homa did last year, win on his Sun City debut.
Homa won by four last year with a display filled with confidence following a highly successful year and a tip-top Ryder Cup performance. This year is very different but there have been a few good weeks such as third in the Masters and on his latest outing in the ZOZO a 66-67-66 return from the last three days following a poor start indicates there isn’t too much wrong with his game. The confidence may not be as high as it was but he will not let go of the one trophy he currently holds without a fight.
We haven’t seen a South African winner of the Nedbank since Brandon Grace in 2017 and their hopes seem to lie principally between Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Thriston Lawrence and Erik Van Rooyen. Lawrence will need to play a lot better than he did at the Race To Dubai finale last time out but he had a cracking year before that, while the very accurate Bezuidenhout brings a bit of course form to the table, a T5 behind Fleetwood two years ago.
From their younger generation, Robin Williams, fourth in the Dunhill Links and a Sunshine Tour winner in October, might be worth an each-way interest at 9/1 on the top South African market. Another young man with great potential is Northern Irishman Tom McKibbin, a model of consistency who could be the pick of a modest collection of GB & Irish challengers. He could be an each-way bet to nothing at 6/1 on that market.
Two to back up my main outright selections are Scandinavians. Thorbjorn Olesen is a multiple winner, was third at Nedbank last year, and is an awesome iron player while Sebastian Soderberg plays above himself at Sun City (T6 last year, T5 in 2023) and could sneak into the places at a big price. He has not had much of year chiefly because injured ribs and back got in the way but a fully-fit Soderberg is a birdie machine.
Fitness is a big issue on a week when temperatures could top 100 (if you prefer it in Fahrenheit) but even at 38C it sounds pretty unbearable. Three days like that before a thundery Sunday. Sun cream will sell well.
Best bets
5pts win Scottie Scheffler @ 5/2
2pts each-way Ludvig Aberg @ 11/1
1pt each-way Bob MacIntyre @ 25/1
0.5pt each-way Justin Thomas @ 10/1
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A golf tipster gets no medals, merely dog’s abuse, for putting up a hot favourite but your money should be in the safest hands in the business when world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler defends his Hero World Challenge title in the Bahamas.
With no sign of Schauffele, McIlroy or Morikawa, the next three on the world rankings, or LIV aces Rahm, Hatton and DeChambeau in the 20-runner field assembled for Tiger’s charity tournament, it could be the easiest $1m Scottie has ever picked up.
No one has ever looked happier on the Albany course than Scheffler who stands 51 under par from 12 birdie-strewn rounds in finishing first and twice second on this sporty track, a 7414-yard par 72 that can be quite a test when the wind blows in. The breeze will be up to 17mph at times but nothing these class acts can’t handle.
The only man to beat Scheffler there was Viktor Hovland, the winner in 2021-22, who has struggled all year and not been seen since dropping out of the BMW PGA with an undisclosed injury. He has decided to leave his clubs in the garage for the rest of the year – yet another absent big name making the favourite an even sounder option.
True, Scheffler has not played competitive strokeplay golf since the Tour Championship at East Lake nine weeks ago when he virtually had to hire to a fleet of wheelbarrows to cart away his FedEx Cup winnings. A cool $62m richer from seven PGA victories topped by the Masters, he added Olympic gold to his glittering CV.
Scheffler is brilliant, maybe an all-time great, and I hope worth backing at 5/2 but he‘s not unbeatable. Any of his rivals could have a dream week. Playing in front of the legendary Tiger Woods, grounded since July after his 11th knee surgery but very much in evidence off the course, should spur the favourite to show his best.
Tiger played only 11 competitive rounds in 2024, the chance to beat Jack Nicklaus’s record 18 Majors gone and as the events he is hoping to show up for next year will have strong fields, the one PGA Tour win he needs to beat Sam Snead’s record 82, already equalled by Woods, may elude him too. I wish he would retire as his decline is not an easy watch but the word “quit” is not in his dictionary.
Tiger is not the only one who’s been under the knife with a knee problem. Ludvig Aberg is just back after surgery for a torn meniscus on his left knee and in finishing 17th at Sea Island the 25-year-old Swede declared himself 100 per cent. His golf was 100 per cent only on two of the days but If we take him at his word, the world No. 5 should button down second money on his Albany debut.
Europe has a good team outside Aberg with Scottish and Canadian Open champion Bob MacIntyre, Austrian Ryder Cup colleague Sepp Straka, Frenchman Matthieu Pavon, a surprise winner at tough Torres Pines early in the year, and Arron Rai, the pride of Wolverhampton who made his PGA Tour breakthrough at the Wyndham in August. Bahamas debutant Bobby Mac has kept going to the end of the year and plays like a man who’s going somewhere and I like him for a place. His putting flair could be key this week.
For the rest, we have eight other members of the winning Presidents Cup side and three from the losers, Sungjae Im, Tom Kim and Jason Day. Only Scheffler appeals from all the Presidents men but Sam Burns and Patrick Cantlay should get in the mix. Yet the each-bet among the Americans could well be someone whose golf was so erratic he lost his Presidents place.
That’s the recovering Justin Thomas who will absolutely love finishing ahead of those kept him out of the team and has excellent Bahamas form, third last year and fifth three in a row before that.
Pity there’s so little juice in his 10/1 quote.
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