SA Women's Open at Southbroom
The 2013 South African Women’s Open will take place at Southbroom Golf Club next month.
The bigger purse this year should ensure greater competition from both international and local top female golfers.
Save the date - 19 to 21 April - in your diaries if you want to make sure you don’t miss South Africa’s oldest women’s professional golf tournament. Prize money this year has been raised from €260 000 to €290 000.
Players from at least 20 countries will be represented in this year’s tournament, including defending champion, Caroline Masson of Germany, and a strong South African contingent of Lee-Anne Pace, Tandi Cunningham, Ashleigh Simon, Stacy Bregman and Nobuhle Dlamini.
Players will be competing in a 54-hole stroke-play tournament co-sanctioned by the Women’s Professional Golf Association and the Ladies European Tour, with World Sports Promotions as the commercial rights owners.
“We had such a good response to the 2012 tournament after its absence from the schedule for so many years, and we are delighted with the kind of growth we have been able to achieve and which will be showcased in this year’s event,” said Lesley Copeman of promoters World Sports Promotions.
The 2013 South African Women’s Open will again feature a strong mix of local and international professionals, as well as amateur invitees as part of the development drive of an event that continues its resurgence in partnership with the KwaZulu-Natal local government and the Hibiscus Coast Municipality.
“It’s extremely important for the development of the South African women’s game at a professional and amateur level that we have a strong South African Women’s Open on our schedule, and which can offer our players an opportunity to compete against international competition,” said Margie Whitehouse, Chairman of the Women’s Professional Golf Association.
The South African Women’s Open has a proud history dating back to 1988. Its return to the Ladies European Tour (LET) schedule last year was widely welcomed as an integral part of bringing top international women’s golf back to South African fairways.
The return of the tournament to KwaZulu-Natal and the Hibiscus Coast places it amongst some elite global tournaments that have been hosted in the province. “It was an incredible honour for us to be able to host the first South African Women’s Open in three years in 2012, and we are delighted that it will be returning this year,” said MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development and Tourism.
(File photo: Gallo Images)
- Jason McCall and Andre Bloem