GOLF MODEL TIPS: NEDBANK CHALLENGE 2025

The Aussie crew gave a good show but it was an import who ended up taking home the honours. David Puig was lights out on the weekend and never gave the chasers a chance. 

After a 17 year old took at the qualifier at the Australian Open the exchange was forced to create a no minors market meaning almost no liquidity for local traders. There’s a bit more happening on the Euro event over in South Africa so I’ll be covering that instead.

The 2025 Nedbank Golf Challenge has been hailed as “Africa’s Major” and welcomes an invite-only 66-man field to the brutally long Gary Player Country Club track. The par-72, located in an extinct volcano crater, will be set up at an eye-watering 7,819 yards this year. A big chunk of that insane yardage is tied up in some extremely long par 4s while even the par-3s all play over 200 yards.

Off the tee, players will face narrow Kikuyu fairways lined by thick rough and bushland that will offer limited opportunities to play directly towards the hole. It doesn’t get much easier on approach, with heavily contoured greens ringed by heavy bunkering. There is some respite on offer with green speeds set slightly lower than usual to give players at least some chance of keeping it on the dancefloor.

Anyone who played in Brisbane last week should feel right at home in the conditions, with forecast temperature in the 30s however humidity will be lower. The heat should help with the distance  little but this will still be a week where off the tee play is going to be the key differentiator.

Past performance on this layout have proved very predictive of future efforts and with some decent histories there’s a number of course specific overlays worth mentioning. Leading the names here is Julien Guerrier, who’s had four strong showings here and has played a stroke and quarter above expectation. Just behind him is local Bezuidenhout who has a win amongst his five excellent appearances.

There’s a pair of Italians standing out at the other end of the spectrum, with Manassero and Molinari not enjoying their time spent down south.

Pretty good volumes here despite Scottie suiting up over on the PGA for the first time in a while. Viktor Hovland makes his first appearance at this event and he’s come in as a hot favourite trading in single figures. The model thinks he’s a fair bit too short so we’ll be looking elsewhere.

There’s been a good spread of trading though with solid liquidity across most of the top of the board. Bezuidenhout has been the most popular with bettors and a late flurry of money has seen him backed into third favouritism.

The other big mover has been Laurie Canter coming in from high to low 30s on very healthy volume.