Wilco Nienaber will play the first hole at Zebula with a degree of caution this week when he tees it up tomorrow in the Sunshine Tour and HotelPlanner Tour co-sanctioned SDC Open.
Nienaber bogeyed the short but tough opening hole every time he played it in last year’s event – and those four drops, together with four more during the week and a double-bogey on the 16th in the final round left him four strokes behind the winner in just another frustrating week amongst many during the year for the 25-year-old.
Daniel van Tonder won last year after charging through the field in the final round, forcing a play-off with Altin van der Merwe and then winning that. Van Tonder has regained his membership on the DP World Tour thanks to a season of success that started with that win, while Nienaber remains an enigma who seemingly should be the one on the bigger stage.
Nienaber is, as we all know, absurdly long off the tee, but he has an all-round game which should also stand him in good stead at the higher level. But the breakthrough many expected after some early professional pyrotechnics has been strangely elusive.
Analyse his scorecards, and often it is easy to find something that should be an easy fix for a player of his abilities – like those four bogeys on the first at Zebula last year. It seems that his strategy should be something like seven-iron off the tee to the left edge of the fairway, a high wedge to the middle of the green, two putts and off to the par-five second which he can easily reach in two.
Perhaps he will do that this week as he begins yet another year in search of that path to the DP World Tour and other more lucrative circuits.
Besides the gathering of players from all around Europe and beyond from the HotelPlanner Tour in the field, there are South Africans in the field who will pose a threat to Nienaber at Zebula, even if he plays at his best.
George Coetzee is looking for a way back to the DP World Tour, and he can produce four rounds good enough to beat just about anyone anywhere. Ryan van Velzen is looking to push ahead with a start to his professional career which has not been as stellar as many had hoped – but not bad by any other measure.
And there are players who are seeking to convert what they have achieved so far in the Sunshine Tour’s 2025-26 schedule so far into strong finishes so they can take advantage of the rewards that are on offer for those at the top of the Order of Merit. Chief amongst those is Herman Loubser, who is lying third on the Order of Merit, and is playing the kind of golf that could see him win for the second time this season. After all, he has finished runner-up on three other occasions so far.
So, for Nienaber, it will be about steadiness as much as about pyrotechnics, and if he stays the course with a grinding approach, he could finally add to his two professional titles. Better still, he could push on and make the step up to the bigger stage.
