Coetzee and Lombard living the dream of Nedbank Golf Challenge

SA’s George Coetzee and Zander Lombard relived their earliest memories as young golf fans attending their first Nedbank Golf Challenge, as they now prepare to tee it up as established professionals in this week’s historic 40th edition of “Africa’s Major”.

Speaking at the champions’ dinner before Thursday’s first round at the Gary Player Country Club, Coetzee recalled his first visit to the Golf Challenge in 1998 — the year Tiger Woods teed it up at Sun City and was beaten in a play-off for the title by Nick Price.

“I remember watching Nick Price and Tiger Woods battle it out, and I actually got Price’s ball with his name on it,” Coetzee said.

He heads into this week’s tournament as one of the in-form golfers after his victory in last week’s SA PGA Championship.

It was a similar experience for Lombard when he attended his first Golf Challenge in 2005. His retelling of this at the champions’ dinner was made all the more special by the fact that the key golfer in his story had just been on stage — Luke Donald.

“I actually got Luke Donald’s ball the year that he finished fifth,” he said of the year when the former world No 1 finished one shot outside the four-man play-off eventually won by Jim Furyk.

Coetzee said both their experiences represented everything that made the Golf Challenge such an important tournament for every SA professional.

“You know Zander had the same sort of experience as me from this event,” he said. “With us growing up in SA and watching this event, you aspired to work hard and become a professional golfer and hopefully one day play in the Golf Challenge.

“I grew up as a big Ernie [Els] fan. I even remember disliking Bernhard Langer because he kept on beating Ernie in this event. Then Ernie shot that incredible tournament record of 25-under par, and that was pretty cool,” Coetzee said. “Ernie was an unbelievable player and he inspired so many of us through this event.”

Lombard certainly has big aspirations for this year’s tournament after finishing tied for eighth in 2019. “It was an amazing experience for me to finish in the top 10 in 2019 and hopefully I can do even better this year,” he said.

A world-class field of 66 professionals will contest this week’s historic 40th edition, including defending champion Tommy Fleetwood, European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald and a strong local challenge of 10 South Africans.

Fleetwood is back as the longest-serving defending champion after his victory in 2019 and then a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

The SA challenge features Thriston Lawrence, Oliver Bekker, Justin Walters, Shaun Norris, JC Ritchie, Branden Grace, Richard Sterne and Christiaan Bezuidenhout all chasing the just more than $1m (R17.8m) first-place cheque.