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Takudzwa Chitsiga Sports Reporter

LOCAL professional golfers who were lucky to maintain their Sunshine Tour cards like Ben Follet-Smith and Scott Vincent will have something to smile about in the 2022 season as the tour has announced an improved calendar with nine new tournaments.

The Sunshine Tour, whose 2022 season is expected to tee off in the final week of January with the Vodacom Origins of Golf Final at the Gary Player Country Club in Sun City, has improved in so many aspects for the season.

The Sunshine Tour has announced a bold start to 2022 with a schedule which includes two new tournaments co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour, and seven tournaments co-sanctioned with the Challenge Tour including a new event in Tanzania.

The first new event is the Jonsson Workwear Open, which will be played at both Durban Country Club and Mt Edgecombe Country Club.

The opening four months of the New Year will see South Africa’s professional golfers competing for almost R80 million in total tournament prize money in what is an extremely strong and lucrative start to the Sunshine Tour season.

February, March and April include the Challenge Tour’s Southern African Swing, which has now grown from three tournaments to seven. According to the Sunshine Tour, they said they are happy that they have an improved schedule which will help their members to a big extent.

“We are delighted to be able to grow our relationship with the DP World Tour and the Challenge Tour with the offering of even more opportunities for our member professionals to secure a place on an international tour while playing at home. This significantly enhances what has always been our global pathway to success for our professionals.

“We also have several new sponsors on board that have recognised the value professional golf offers. We would also like to pay tribute to our existing sponsors — Dimension Data, Bain’s Whisky, City of Cape Town, the Limpopo Tourism Authority, Vodacom and the Kit Kat Group — many of whom have been with us for a very long time and who continue to give us the means to build on a Sunshine Tour brand that is globally recognised as a place of opportunity and reflective of our slogan that “GreatnessBeginsHere,” they stated.