After his near miss last season, it has taken Altin van der Merwe some time to get things back on track, but he seems all set ahead of this week’s Sunshine Tour venture up north to the Mopani Zambia Open.

Van der Merwe lost in an agonisingly frustrating way in a play-off in the SDC Open at Zebula in January to a hard-charging Daniel van Tonder, and he followed that with a pair of missed cuts. After that, he failed to qualify for three big tournaments before getting on the horse again with a share of sixth in the Serengeti Playoff in March.

At the start of the new season in April, he missed the cut at the KitKat Cash & Carry Pro-Am, but he’s back after a share of 13th in the non-Order of Merit event, the Waterfall Tournament of Champions, and a fifth-place finish in the Gary & Vivienne Player Challenge.

The Nkana Golf Club outside Kitwe has a habit of delivering first-time champions, and maybe away from the kind of attention Van der Merwe’s undoubted abilities draw back home in South Africa, he’ll be able to put his head down and produce the professional win he will almost certainly soon get.

He’s not alone in being someone with a fine amateur pedigree having to wait a little longer than expected for a maiden professional title. Martin Vorster should have produced a victory in the paid ranks by now, as should Kyle de Beer and Christiaan Burke. All of those players will tee it up in Zambia on Thursday with solid recent form behind them to go with the memories of their amateur exploits.

They will be up against the likes of Daniel van Tonder, who has won at Nkana. He took the title in 2019 after having finished runner-up in 2014 and 2015.

Van Tonder’s brother-in-law, Malcolm Mitchell, is, of course the latest Sunshine Tour champion after his victory last week in the Gary & Vivienne Player Challenge at Benoni Country Club. He, however, might find it difficult to lift himself for the second week in a row.

Local hero Dayne Moore, whose face adorns billboards in the highway into Kitwe, achieved his only top-10 finish of his Sunshine Tour career in his home country in 2010, is someone who could well rise to the occasion on home soil and send the enthusiastic local fans who watch the tournament closely into raptures.

But, he will have a strong South African contingent, including Van der Merwe, with which to contend.