George Coetzee has won five times on the Vodacom Origins of Golf series, and he returns to that long-running Sunshine Tour tradition this week as the 2025 edition gets underway at Parys Golf & Country Estate.
It’s been a long time in the injury wilderness for the man who has won five times on the DP World Tour, and 15 times on the Sunshine Tour. He will feel encouraged by a return to where it all started, as his first professional win came way back in 2007 at the Vodacom Origins of Golf at Selborne in KwaZulu-Natal.
His latest wins in the series came in 2021 and 2022, both at De Zalze in the Western Cape, so, in a sense, playing at Parys will be a bit of a change-up for him.
What’s also different is that he’s fighting for a return to something resembling his glory days in Europe: Out of eight starts on the DP World Tour in the latest season, he has missed six cuts, and with a best finish of just a share of 46th, which came in the Investec South African Open Championship, it’s been a difficult return for Coetzee.
So perhaps a return to ground-zero is a good idea, and he can find the kinds of feels which made him not only such a feared competitor, but also such a popular one.
He will be up against some formidable opposition: Jean Hugo has won an incredible 12 times on the Vodacom Origins of Golf series, in a period spanning from April 2006 to August 2024. Something about the series brings out the best in Hugo, and it would be unsurprising to see the 49-year-old in contention once again.
Another player, who, like Coetzee, is trying to revive some DP World Tour glory days, is Ockie Strydom, and he has chosen to be at this tournament ahead of grinding it out for another week in Europe, where they go in Denmark. Strydom has not made a cut since the Alfred Dunhill Championship, and his best result this season was his share of sixth in the Nedbank Golf Challenge the week before that. He needs to do some serious rebuilding.
Of course, there is the usual plethora of young players making their way on the Sunshine Tour who could break through at any time. Any one of them could provide a stern test for the experience of Coetzee, and there are almost as many players who have won once or twice and could return to that kind of form once more.
But, for Coetzee, this may not be make or break, but it certainly represents a prime opportunity to re-establish himself as a force in South African golf.
