The Alfred Dunhill Championship is a men's professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

tournament which is played in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. It is part of the Southern African

Sunshine Tour The Sunshine Tour is a men's professional golf tour based in Southern and East Africa. For much of its early history it was known either as the South African Tour or Sunshine Circuit; through sponsorship deals, it has also been known as the Vod ...

and is one of several events in South Africa that are co-sanctioned by the more prestigious

European Tour The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fift ...

History

The tournament was founded in 2000, but its origins lie in Dunhill's sponsorship of the

South African PGA Championship The South African PGA Championship is one of the most prestigious golf tournaments on the Sunshine Tour. It is generally played in February, depending on the Tour Schedule, with a prize fund of 2 million rand, and is currently held at Eye of Afri ...

between 1995 and 1999. Following the 1999 Alfred Dunhill PGA Championship, the company decided to discontinue their association with the South African PGA, and create their own stand alone tournament. The first event was held in January 2000 at the Houghton Golf Club in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

, and replaced the South African PGA Championship on the

calendar. In 2004, the tournament was rescheduled to December, resulting in two events being staged that year; one in January and one in December. Following this change, the Alfred Dunhill Championship has formed part of the following year's European Tour season. In addition, the event was moved to the Leopard Creek Country Club, just south of the

Kruger National Park Kruger National Park is a South African National Park and one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends from north to south and from ea ...

Malalane Malalane (formerly Malelane) is a farming town in Mpumalanga, South Africa situated on the N4 national highway. The farms in the region produce sugarcane, subtropical fruit and winter vegetables. The town was proclaimed in 1949 after which it w ...

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It ...

. The 2021 event was scheduled to take place at

Leopard Creek Country Club Leopard Creek Country Club is a Gary Player-designed country club in Malalane, South Africa. The course sits at the border of Kruger National Park, with the Crocodile River (Mpumalanga) snaking through some fairways. The course is owned by South ...

from 9–12 December. It was to be a co-sanctioned event between the

and the

. However due to COVID-19 travel restrictions in place in the UK from South Africa, the event was cancelled less than two weeks before the tournament was due to start.

Flagship event

In 2016, the Alfred Dunhill Championship replaced the South African Open as the tour's flagship event by the

Official World Golf Ranking The Official World Golf Ranking is a system for rating the performance level of professional golfers. It was started in 1986. The rankings are based on a player's position in individual tournaments (i.e. not pairs or team events) over a "rolli ...

governing board. The winner was awarded 32 OWGR points. The change only lasted for one edition before reverting to the South African Open the following year as no tournament was held. In 2020, the Alfred Dunhill Championship once again became the tour's flagship event. The event was intended to be the flagship event again in 2021. However due to the cancellation of the tournament, the flagship event status was passed onto the South African Open.

Winners

Notes

References

External links

*
Coverage on the European Tour's official site
{{Sunshine Tour Events Sunshine Tour events European Tour events Golf tournaments in South Africa Recurring sporting events established in 2000 2000 establishments in South Africa