With the defending champion not in the field, as well as five other former champions missing, the Dimension Data Ladies Challenge title is up for grabs, and 2017 champion Nicole Garcia can attest to how useful a victory in the tournament is as a springboard to an international career.
The R700,000 54-hole tournament, with R600,000 in prize money for the professionals, and R100,000 for the team competition with participating amateurs, gets underway on Friday with the first of two rounds at George Golf Club, before the final round is contested on the Outeniqua course at Fancourt on Sunday.
Garcia went on to campaign on the Ladies European Tour after her 2017 win, and last year’s winner, Marianne Skarpnord from Norway, won her fourth Ladies European Tour title in July after triumphing in George as she took the individual title in the Aramco Team Series event in London.
Nobuhle Dlamini of Swaziland and Lejan Lewthwaite are two other former champions who have followed Garcia’s path to the Ladies European Tour after their wins in the Dimension Data Ladies Challenge. They, with Lee-Anne Pace and Stacy Bregman, are in action in the Ladies European Tour’s Magical Kenya Ladies Open this week. The first winner of the tournament, Monique Smit, as well as the 2018 champion Carrie Park of South Korea, will not be teeing it up this week.
Garcia was right in the thick of things last week in the opening tournament of the Sunshine Ladies Tour season at the SunBet Cape Town Ladies Open, as she was just one off the pace heading into the final round. A tough closing four-over-par 80 meant she finished in a share of sixth, four shots behind first-time winner Nadia van der Westhuizen.
Van der Westhuizen is in the field at George, too, and, naturally, will be wanting to parlay the early form which gave her a maiden professional win into a second win on the trot, as well as a starting point to an international career which the Dimension Data Ladies Challenge seems to give.
As if to underline the effectiveness of a good performance in George, there are no fewer than 11 first-time visitors from abroad trying to launch international careers too. There are 11 countries other than South Africa represented in the field, and Skarpnord has clearly been talking up the value of a South African campaign as there are three Norwegians in the field.
It is a return to the original format of the tournament after the absence of the amateurs last year due to Covid-19 protocols. Skarpnord won with rounds on Outeniqua and Montagu at Fancourt, but Garcia will have stored on her memory hard drive the details of her 2017 win, as well as her recent good form.
That will make her tough to beat.
