Dunhill Championship Set In One Of Golf’s Coolest Venues

One of the DP World Tour’s coolest venues — Leopard Creek County Club — is the host of this week’s Dunhill Championship.

Leopard Creek is surrounded by South Africa’s Kruger National Park — an incredible preserve that is home to an array of animals living in the wild — from many of the fairways you can see herds of elephants at watering holes or grazing nearby.

One of the country’s all-time favorite players is in this week field — Ernie Els — who spends his time these days on the Champions Tour back in the U.S.

Els has never missed a cut in his previous six appearances at Leopard Creek and he’s hopeful for a good week starting Thursday.

“It’s one of my favorite events in the world so hopefully we can do something,” Els said earlier this week.  “We are almost like tourists now, we live abroad. My wife is here and we’re enjoying it like a tourist, were going into the park and looking at the animals and enjoying the South African bush. It’s an amazing place.

“It’s wonderful, just look at the place. It’s nice and green, had a lot of rain, the river is flowing and the golf course is in amazing condition so it’s great to be back.”

Christiaan Bezuidenhout returns as the defending champion although the event wasn’t played last year due to the Covid pandemic.  He’s had a breakthrough, has climbed into the world’s top 50 and was on the International team at last fall’s Presidents Cup matches.

Two high-profile South African players in the field just happen to be LIV defectors — Branden Grace and Louis Oosthuizen.  They’ll be among the favorites to contend this week.