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There are 11 South African golfers in the field, with the tournament starting Thursday.
Former champion Louis Oosthuizen plays a practice round with Aldrich Potgieter ahead of the start of the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland on Thursday. Picture: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
Of the 11 South Africans in the field at this week’s 153rd Open at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, former champion Louis Oosthuizen will be first off the tee at 7.46am Thursday morning.
The Open champion at St Andrews in 2010, who now plays his golf on the LIV Tour, will play alongside Guido Migliozzi and KJ Choi for the first two rounds.
Oosthuizen has enjoyed playing the Open over the years and also boasts a tied second (2015) and tied third (2021) in 17 appearances. He will hope for another good week on the links course.
Following Oosthuizen off the tee will be Daniel van Tonder, at 8.19am, alongside Phil Mickelson and Ryan Peake, and then it will be Justin Walters at 10.14am, in a group with Takumi Kanaya and fellow South African amateur, 18-year-old Bryan Newman.
Newman will be chasing the silver medal, awarded to the best amateur over the tournament, after he qualified to play this week by winning the Africa Amateur Championship at Leopard Creek in February as a 17-year-old.
SA Open champion Naidoo
At 10.47am new hot-shot and recent first-time winner on the PGA Tour, Aldrich Potgieter, will be off with American powerhouses Sam Burns and Brooks Koepka, who has won five Majors but is seeking a first Claret Jug.
At 11.53am, SA Open champion Dylan Naidoo, who won in a playoff in Durban in early March, will make his Open debut alongside veteran South African Darren Fichardt, with John Axelsen the other member of their group.
Another South African playing LIV Golf, Dean Burmester, will play alongside Davis Thompson of the US and Rikuya Hoshino of Japan from 1.42pm, while Shaun Norris will play in a group featuring Matt McCarty of the US and Spain’s Angel Hidalgo at 2.15pm.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout, now a regular on the PGA Tour in the US, will play alongside Rasmus Hojgaard and Romain Langasque, while Thriston Lawrence, who led the Open at one stage last year and eventually finished fourth, will be off at 3.04pm alongside former champion Justin Leonard and Antoine Rozner.
The defending champion this week is American Xander Schauffele.
The last time the Open was held at Royal Portrush, in 2019, Ireland’s Shane Lowry won the Claret Jug. The last South African winner was Ernie Els, in 2012, at Royal Lytham and St Annes, but he is not playing this year.
For all the tee times Thursday click here. All the tee times in this story are SA times.
