He started the year at 606th on the Official World Golf Ranking, and his latest victory has lifted JC Ritchie to 138th after he took the title in the Sunshine Tour’s Stella Artois Players Championship at Randpark last week.

It was a climb of 20 places for the man who won for the fourth time in 2025, with three of those wins coming on the HotelPlanner Tour to give him full status on the DP World Tour for the 2026 season which kicks off in Australia in just a week’s time.

While he hasn’t reached his career-high of 113th, which he achieved after his 2019 win in the Zanaco Masters in Zambia on the Sunshine Tour, his performances for the year will give him great satisfaction as he takes a break this week. He put his head down and grafted away on the HotelPlanner Tour after losing his status on the DP World Tour, and his perseverance paid off in spades.

As he has experience on the bigger stage already, he will be hopeful that he can get off to a fast start for the new season, especially with tournaments at home and in the familiarity of Mauritius early on to keep him on the kind of upward trajectory he has been riding lately.

The rise in the rankings also made him the seventh-best South African player according to the official lists, as he leapfrogged Jayden Schaper and Christo Lamprecht.

Schaper was one of just four players on the list of the best 25 South Africans on the official rankings who climbed. He was up two places after a solid if unspectacular week in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. He was up to his career-best of 152nd after a season which cemented his place at the top table in Europe. All that he needs now is a maiden title and he will be up and running on his way to the world’s top 100.

The other two players who were up on the lists were Pieter Moolman and Thriston Lawrence. Moolman was up two places into 448th, and Lawrence remained South Africa’s top-ranked player, up two spots to 61st.

Those players who climbed in the latest world rankings are noted in bold below.

South Africa’s top 25:

1. Thriston Lawrence 61 (up 2)
2. Garrick Higgo 68 (down 1)
3. Aldrich Potgieter 75 (down 3)
4. Christiaan Bezuidenhout 83 (down 1)
5. Erik van Rooyen 108 (down 2)
6. Shaun Norris 121 (down 2)
7. JC Ritchie 138 (up 20)
8. Christo Lamprecht 143 (down 2)
9. Jayden Schaper 152 (up 2)
10. Jacques Kruyswijk 180 (down 4)
11. Richard Sterne 208 (down 2)
12. Barend Botha 215 (down 4)
13. Daniel van Tonder 232 (down 5)
14. Brandon Stone 310 (down 4)
15. Casey Jarvis 314 (down 2)
16. Jonathan Broomhead 324 (down 1)
17. Darren Fichardt 340 (unchanged)
18. Dylan Naidoo 359 (down 7)
19. Dean Burmester 371 (down 17)
20. Robin Williams 369 (down 4)
21. Michael Hollick 392 (down 2)
22. Louis Oosthuizen 429 (down 9)
23. Pieter Moolman 448 (up 9)
24. Charl Schwartzel 484 (down 7)
25. Dylan Frittelli 492 (down 12)