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Up for the
CHALLENGE
The small SA contingent will be eager to tackle the course and the field at The PGA Championship
By BRENDAN BARRATT
It has been 53 years since Gary Player hoisted the Wanamaker Trophy at Oakland Hills Country Club ‑ the second of his two PGA Championship titles, and his sixth Major. So it's been more than half a century since a South African tasted success at what used to be the final Major of the year.
Since then, we have collected our fair share of men’s Majors – four US Opens, three Open Championships and two Masters titles. But no PGAs. In fact, in the past decade, only Louis Oosthuizen (runner-up in 2017 and 2021), Branden Grace (tie-fourth in 2016) and Erik van Rooyen (tie-eighth in 2019) have finished inside the top 10.
It’s a bizarrely barren statistic, given how competitive South African golf is at every level. This month, the task of correcting this anomaly is a tough, yet not impossible one. The PGA Championship returns to North Carolina’s Quail Hollow Club from 15-18 May with South Africans Dean Burmester, Daniel van Tonder and Garrick Higgo outsiders to reverse the trend.
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They will be up against it on a course that feels like home turf to players on the PGA Tour. Quail Hollow has hosted a PGA Tour event every year since 2003 and lists recent Masters champion Rory McIlroy as a four-time winner here.
Two-time PGA champion Justin Thomas claimed his first Major here, back in 2017, while Xander Schauffele has finished runner-up at the Wells Fargo Championship for the past two years running. Throw in the usual suspects, including world No 1 Scottie Scheffler, Bryson Dechambeau, Brooks Koepka, Ludwig Aberg, Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland, and it’s hard to see a way through for the South African contingent.
GOLDEN ERA
One of Gary Player’s nine Majors was at the 1972 PGA Championship at Oakland Hills. He started the final round with a one-shot lead, and on the Sunday morning, he called his father in South Africa who told him, ‘Win it for me, son.’
Which is exactly what Player did, with a 281 aggregate, to finish two clear of Tommy Aaron and Jim Jamieson. But there was no shortage of drama en route to victory.
The South African had bogeyed the 14th and 15th holes, and on the 16th he pushed his drive right into wet, thick rough, with the flagstick hidden by a tree. But he then played what has been described as one of the greatest shots in Major history.
Player struck his 9-iron perfectly, carried the ball over the tree and across the pond to within four feet from the bin. He went on to the birdie the hole and effectively secure victory.
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Yet there is hope. The PGA Championship, arguably more than the rest of the Majors, is prone to the occasional shock result. David Toms, Rich Beem and Shaun Micheel from the early 2000s spring to mind, and you can add Keegan Bradley, Jason Dufner and Jimmy Walker to that list. There was another PGA bolter in 2021 when a 50-year-old Phil Mickelson sprang one of the biggest upsets in the event's history.
Burmester, who finished tie-12th last year at Valhalla, has won four times in the past 18 months, while Van Tonder, the reigning Sunshine Tour Order of Merit champion, won four times this season. This will be his third appearance at The PGA Championship, with a best result of tie-44th in 2021.
Meanwhile, Higgo earned himself an entry into the Major when he won the Corales Puntacana Championship in late April.
It was his second PGA Tour victory, which has also earned him exemptions into the 2026 editions of The Sentry and The Players Championship, and he is fully exempt again on the PGA Tour through to 2027.
LAST FIVE CHAMPIONS
2024 Xander Schauffele
2023 Brooks Koepka
2022 Justin Thomas
2021 Phil Mickelson
2020 Colin Morikawa
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To win what is the largest trophy in golf, players will need to beat not only a stacked field of 130 of the world’s best golfers and a handful of PGA professionals, but also negotiate their way around a tricked up Quail Hollow.
Fairways will be tighter, the rough will be thicker and the greens will run faster than a normal PGA Tour event, as the organisers look to bring the winning score closer to level par than the 17 under par scored by McIlroy to win last year’s Wells Fargo Championship. McIlroy’s course record of 61, set in 2015, will certainly not be under threat this month.
Players will need to carefully navigate Quail Hollow’s infamous ‘Green Mile’ closing stretch of holes, which consists of the 463m par-four 16th hole, the 203m par-three 17th and the 452m par-four 18th.
All three closing holes are long, watery and liable to offer some fireworks come the final round of the 2025 PGA Championship. With a bit of luck, the fireworks could signal the end of a 53-year wait.
WINNER’S CIRCLE
Watch Xander Schauffele birdie the 18th to win the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club.
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CHRIS TURVEY/PGA OF AMERICA/ROLEX/QUAIL HOLLOW CLUB/ERIK S LESSER/EPA/BACKPAGEPIX/TYRONE WINFIELD/SUNSHINE TOUR/SUPPLIED/PGA TOUR/X
