
BOOK EXTRACT
EAST
meets west
This is the fifth edited extract from the book The Sunshine Boys, a Sunshine Tour publication produced in 2021
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The Sunshine Boys
by DAN RETIEF
There was a time in professional golf when the Order Of Merit was simply a list of players' earnings. Golf writers revelled in phrases such as 'he earned a whopping…' and South Africans did a currency conversion to equate pound sterling or US dollars earnings to astronomical figures in rands.
Then at some point that changed, whether for fear of the taxman or simple unease at having their earnings broadcast to the world, the various tours acquiesced to the players' demands and introduced points systems to arrive at an annual merit table. One could, with diligent searching, still find the earnings, but money ceased to be the thrust of reporting on pro golfers.
However, the inescapable reality of 'turning pro' is that it is about the money and for a player to be able to earn an income on a pro rata basis of how few shots he took, certain rules of access came into play. At first that meant simply forfeiting one's amateur status, but as more and more eager young golfers became enchanted by the thought of being paid very well to play golf, certain barriers became inevitable.
This was the all-important card. No card, no play – it was as simple as that. It was, and still is, extremely hard to get onto the PGA Tour and this is also now true for Europe.

DID YOU KNOW?
In 1998 Chris Williams was named the Asian Tour Players Player of the Year and in 2011 Tjaart van der Walt (pictured) was Rookie of the Year

Young South Africans, unable to simply follow the old route of entering European tournaments, started to look East. David Frost and Ernie Els, in successive years, 1991 and 1992, had piqued curiosity by winning the Dunlop Phoenix Masters in Japan and word filtered through of a passable series of professional golf tournaments in Asia.
That's when Nico van Rensburg – a good friend and teammate of Els' since their teens, Craig Kamps and Langley Perrins decided to try to find a place to play on the 'Noodle Tour'. They were able to show that the extremely foreign conditions, lifestyles and diets could be overcome, and their success led to the likes of Des Terblanche, Chris Williams, James Kingston (main image), Michael Scholtz, Hendrik Buhrmann and Keith Horne (pictured) following suit.

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Which South African golfer has won the most times on the Asian Tour?
- Nico van Rensburg
- James Kingston
- Des Terblanche
- Retief Goosen
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The Japan Golf Tour, with top internationally ranked players such as Isao Aoki and Jumbo Ozaki, became progressively stronger, and instead of the odd loosely connected event, a proper Asian Tour came into being; an outcome in which former Sunshine Tour commissioner and player agent Louis Martin played no small part.
As the big tours became more of a closed shop, a steady stream of South Africans would go East, score many victories and some even made it their home base. Major winners such as Els, Retief Goosen, Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen were on the radar of sponsors for big-money, co-sanctioned events, but Kingston, Terblanche (four wins each), Van Rensburg (three), Kamps, Anton Haig, Jbe Kruger, Shaun Norris and Justin Harding (two each) often raised the silverware and became highly rated.
SA'S ASIAN TOUR WINNERS
1995
Nico van Rensburg
1996
Craig Kamps,
Richard Kaplan
1997
Des Terblanche (x2)
1998
Nico van Rensburg,
Chris Williams (x2)
1999
James Kingston,
Nico van Rensburg
2000
James Kingston (x2),
Craig Kamps, Des Terblanche
2002
Retief Goosen
2003
Ernie Els
2005
Ernie Els (x2), Retief Goosen
2006
Hendrik Buhrmann, Retief Goosen, Anton Haig
2007
Retief Goosen, Anton Haig
2008
Retief Goosen
2009
James Kamte
2010
Peter Karmis
2012
Jbe Kruger, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel
2013
Thomas Aiken
2015
George Coetzee, Shaun Norris
2016
Shaun Norris,
Louis Oosthuizen
2017
Dylan Frittelli
2018
Justin Harding (x2),
Louis Oosthuizen
2019
Jbe Kruger
2023
Jaco Ahlers
2024
Jbe Kruger

