Chapman's top tip Ross McGowan 18-1 With sponsors dropping out like flies and Tiger adding sleaze to his other peccadilloes of swearing, spitting and clubthrowing, South African golf has shot itself in the foot this week by not trying harder to get its three best players, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Tim Clark, lining up for the national Open.
First played in 1903, the South African Open is the second oldest championship in the world and has been won by some of the greatest golfers ever to lace on a shoe, notably Gary Player,13 times champion, and Els. It certainly deserves a far better field than the one headed by 11-1 favourite Charl Schwartzel.
So if sponsors find money even harder to come by next year, who can blame them if golf gets a sore head? Schwartzel, at No. 65 in the world, is the top-ranked player in the field, and there is nobody among the 156 runners who puts bums on seats in a country where public support for watching the game is close to pitiful. So 2009 winds down with a whimper instead of a bang in a tournament which has failed to attract South Africa's or Europe's finest.
Last year, because it fitted in with their schedules, Els, Goosen, Clark, Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood and Henrik Stenson turned up at Pearl Valley, the jewel in the Western Cape which is hosting the Open for the third time in a row. Where are they now when golf needs all the support it can get? Schwartzel, runner-up to 125-1 shocker Pablo Martin at Leopard Creek on Sunday, may well go one better but on his two attempts at Pearl Valley, he has not advertised Stainless Steel Pendant his claims by finishing only 31st and 16th. His driving looked suspect under the gun on Sunday and I think there is better value to be had.
Although the record book says that South Africans have won the last eight Opens, that run cannot last forever and I fancy a European 1-2-3 through Ross McGowan, Anders Hansen and Robert Rock.
McGowan's outstanding second place in the all-star Dubai World Championship last time out earns him the headline vote at 18-1. It came only a month after the Cheam man's wholesale silver Leather Bracelets majestic victory over a better field than this in Madrid. Four of his last six finishes have produced finishes of third (European Masters), sixth (Dunhill Links), first and second.
Confidence would be even higher if he had acclimatised by playing the Dunhill last week but there's no doubting his ability to cope with Pearl Valley - he finished 14th last year - or the nap on the tricky South African greens as he was fifth in the 2008 Dunhill and 14th in Joburg.
Here is a golfer who is definitely going places, maybe even into the Ryder Cup.
Next best Anders Hansen 14-1 Nobody has more incentive than Hansen to win or at least do very well this week. He stands on the brink of becoming the first European to win the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit following victories in the Joburg and Vodacom Opens at the start of the year, backed up by third place in the Dunhill on Sunday.
There is nowhere, except perhaps Wentworth, that he plays better golf than South Africa, so it is strange he did not play there for five years since finishing fourth in the 2004 SA Open and sixth in the Dunhill. What may find him out is course experience as this is his debut at Pearl Valley.
If he ends 2009 the way he started, there will no other winner. His year has been full of good performances - runnerup in Cologne, fourth in France and fifth in Singapore before Sunday's third.
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