Els the man to beat at Alfred Dunhill
BY Bruce Young | European PGA Tour | 2007 Alfred Dunhill Championship | Preview | 06 Dec 2007
The European Tour has moved across the Southern Hemisphere to South Africa for the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek in Mpumalunga in South Africa.
The tournament co-sanctioned between the European and Sunshine Tours is the penultimate event of 2007 on the European Tour although this week’s tournament and next week’s South African Airways Open are part of the 2008 European Tour schedule.
Leopard Creek is a Johan Rupert owned and Gary Player designed layout opened in 1996.
The three time winner of the event, Ernie Els, dominates favouritism but he will be faced with a strong challenge from South African, Charl Schwartzel, and England’s Ross Fisher amongst others.
Els has arrived at Leopard Creek off the back of a third placed finish at the Nedbank Challenge last week in Sun City and won six weeks earlier at the World Match Play so is in the sort of form whereby his favouritism can be easily justified.
Schwartzel has been sadly out of form in recent months but he has won at Leopard Creek previously and is always a factor when playing back in his homeland.
Fisher on the other hand has performed well in 2007 including when runner up a month ago at the lucrative HSBC Champions event in China and when winning the KLM Open earlier in the year. Importantly he finished 4th in this event last year suggesting that a win would not be the surprise it would have been twelve months ago.
