Oosthuizen best of 4 SA players in top 50

Jan 9, 2023 | Featured, Rankings

South African golfers begin 2023 with just four players inside the top 100 on the Official World Golf Ranking list, led by Louis Oosthuizen at 50^th.

And with Oosthuizen set to slip out of the top 50 and downwards while there is no prospect of a deal between OWGR and LIV Golf, the list is perhaps as poor a representation of South African golf strength as it’s ever been.

That has more to do with the vagaries of the ranking system, as well as its now more overt than ever bias towards the PGA Tour, than the quality of golf played by South Africans. With the small sop of boosting the points on the clearly strong fields of the DP World Tour now gone from the calculations, it’s difficult to see how good players in Europe are going to maintain a good ranking position or gain places on the list, despite patently good play.

There are four more players inside the top 150, which means that there are a lot of players within striking distance of the world’s top 100.

Whatever the world rankings situation, there is no immediate changing of it for South African players. The evaluation of their performances through 2023 is going to have to be done through more prisms than just a wonky algorithm.

Whatever happens, Dean Burmester is best-placed to have a good year on the world rankings list as well having a chance of cementing his place at the high table of world golf: He’s currently ranked 55^th and he has begun his rookie season on the PGA Tour. Five more places higher on that list by the week before the Masters, on April 3, and he gets to play Augusta National. That could be the start of a memorable 2023 for him.

South Africa’s top 20