Jayden Schaper (born 14 March 2001) is a South African professional golfer who plays on the

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 fi ...

and Sunshine Tour. He was runner-up at the 2020

Alfred Dunhill Championship The Alfred Dunhill Championship is a men's professional golf tournament which is played in South Africa. It is part of the Southern African Sunshine Tour and is one of several events in South Africa that are co-sanctioned by the more prestigious ...

and became Sunshine Tour Rookie of the Year for 2020–21 and 2021–22.

Early life and amateur career

Schaper is from

Benoni, South Africa Benoni is a town in Ekurhuleni municipality, Gauteng, South Africa. Benoni was also the setting for the MTV-inspired movie ''Crazy Monkey: Straight Outta Benoni'', released internationally in 2005. People from Benoni *Urzila Carlson, New Zeala ...

, a suburb of

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 Dem ...

, and plays out of Ebotse Golf & Country Club. He had a successful amateur career and was the top ranked junior golfer in South Africa by age 15. In 2017, at the age of 16, he won both the South African Boys U17 Stroke Play Championship and the South African Boys U19 Championship, to become the first player to win the "grand slam" of junior titles in South Africa, having previously won the U13 and U15 championships. In 2019, he won the All Africa Team Championship in Mauritius, and the Junior Players Championship at

TPC Sawgrass The Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass (TPC at Sawgrass) is a golf course in the southeastern United States, located in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, southeast of Jacksonville. Opened in the autumn of 1980, it was the first of several Tournament ...

in the United States, a stroke ahead of China's Bo Jin. He became the top ranked South African amateur in March 2019. Schaper was on the SA National Team and represented his country at the 2017

Junior Golf World Cup The Toyota Junior Golf World Cup ( ja, 世界ジュニアゴルフ推進会) is an annual world amateur team golf championship for youths under 18 organized in Japan with Toyota Motor Corporation as title sponsor. The inaugural event for boys was h ...

in Japan, and played on the International Team in the 2017 and 2019 Junior Presidents Cup. In January 2020, Schaper tied for sixth at the South African Open in Johannesburg, the best amateur finish in the tournament since

Ernie Els Theodore Ernest Els (; born 17 October 1969) is a South African professional golfer. A former , he is known as "The Big Easy" due to his imposing physical stature (he stands ) along with his fluid golf swing. Among his more than 70 career victor ...

in 1989, after having sat just a shot off the lead ahead of round 3.

Professional career

Schaper turned professional early 2020, at age 18. He joined the Sunshine Tour, where he finished runner-up at the

in December, and won the Rookie of the Year award back-to-back in

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

and 2021–22. In 2021, Schaper also joined the

Challenge Tour The Challenge Tour is the second-tier men's professional golf tour in Europe. It is operated by the PGA European Tour and, as with on the main European Tour and the European Senior Tour, some of the events are played outside Europe. History T ...

, and in 2023 the

, where he tied for 16th at the

Barbasol Championship The Barbasol Championship is a professional golf tournament in Kentucky on the PGA Tour; it debuted in 2015 as an alternate event to The Open Championship in Britain in July. The first three editions of the tournament were played in Alabama at t ...

in Kentucky, a

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...

co-sanctioned event. In the

2024 Predicted and scheduled events * January 1 ** In the United States, books, films, and other works published in 1928 will enter the public domain, assuming there are no changes made to copyright law. ***''Steamboat Willie'', Walt Disney's f ...

season, Schaper finished top-10 in all four

and Sunshine Tour co-sanctioned events. He shared the lead heading into the final round of the South African Open, and eventually finished tied 5th after a final round 74.

Amateur wins

*2017 South African Boys U19 Championship, Dimension Data Junior Open, South African Boys U17 Stroke Play Championship *2018 North and South Championship *2019 Region 5 International Championship, Western Province Amateur Strokeplay Championship, Junior Players Championship, Ekurhuleni Open, All Africa Team Championship, The Bobby Locke Open Source:

Team appearances

Amateur *

(representing South Africa): 2017 * Junior Presidents Cup (representing the International team): 2017, 2019 Source:

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Schaper, Jayden South African male golfers Sunshine Tour golfers European Tour golfers Sportspeople from Benoni Golfers from Johannesburg White South African people 2001 births Living people