South African Women's Open
The South African Women’s Open is a 54-hole stroke play tournament organized by the Women’s Professional Golf Association in South Africa. In 2013, the WPGA formed a partnership with the Sunshine Tour which resulted in the successful launch of the Sunshine Ladies Tour the following year and the SA Women’s Open is now one of the main championships on that circuit. Since 2018, the Open has also been co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour, making it a more competitive affair.
The first Women’s Open took place in 1988 at Germiston Country Club on the banks of Victoria Lake in the East Rand region of Gauteng, with Elizabeth Glass from Zimbabwe winning the inaugural contest. The competition venues then remained close to Johannesburg for the next ten years. Germiston hosted editions 2, 3 and 4 until early teething troubles forced a three-year intermission for the event.
Observatory Golf Club, founded in 1914 and the oldest club in Johannesburg still operating from its original grounds, staged the “comeback” Women’s Open in 1995, with local favourite Mandy Adamson winning the first of her three Open titles. The championship then moved 40 kilometres north to Kyalami Country Club for the next three iterations before heading to Cape Town for four years.
Rondebosch Golf Club was the location for the 1999 staging of the Women’s Open and Barbara Pestana retained her title with a sparkling seven under par aggregate score. Englishwoman Claire Duffy then posted a four under par total to win on the same course a year later. The championship course on the nearby Devonvale Golf & Wine Estate held the 2001 and 2002 events, with Mandy Adamson completing her hat-trick of national victories in the latter.
It was then time to return to Johannesburg for the succeeding three presentations of the SA Women’s Open on the East course at what was then named Royal Johannesburg Golf Club. Swedish women Helena Svensson and Maria Boden won two of the events and sandwiched in between them, Ashleigh Simon captured the 2004 championship as a 14-year-old amateur.
The Open broke new ground in 2006, moving to KwaZulu-Natal – and Durban Country Club in particular – for three years. Another two Europeans (Rebecca Hudson from England in 2006 and Julie Tvede from Denmark in 2008) lifted the trophy when the tournament took place here and, once again, Ashleigh Simon popped up in the middle to win again as an amateur just ahead of turning professional on her 18th birthday in 2007.
Tandi Cuningham was crowned ladies champion at Parkview in Johannesburg in 2009, playing as a 22-year-old in only her third professional event before the Women’s Open suffered another little hiccup, lying dormant for a couple of years then bouncing back into life on the KwaZulu-Natal coast at Selborne Golf Estate in Pennington. The following year the tournament was held an hour’s drive further south at Southbroom Golf Club.
European winners prevailed at both locations: Caroline Masson from Germany won by one shot from her two nearest rivals with an aggregate score of 12 under par at Selborne, while Norwegian Marianne Skarpnord also finished one shot ahead of seven other players at Southbroom in what turned out to be a one-round event cut short due to rain and high winds wiping out play on the final two days.
Situated only a 10-minute drive from Southbroom, the San Lameer Estate hosted the Open from 2014 to 2017 (there was another gap of one year in 2016) with Lee-Ann Pace from Paarl in Western Cape winning all three competitions. Her success in the first Open came at the second hole of a playoff against Holly Clyburn from England. The other two wins were rather more straightforward; overcoming her closest competitor by 4 shots in 2015 then by 7 shots in 2017.
The event returned to Cape Town for the first time in sixteen years in 2018 (with title sponsorship from the Investec Property company) to the course at Westlake Golf Club, nestled at the foot of the Silvermine Mountains. Ashleigh Buhai (née Simon) recorded her third SA Women’s Open win in 2018; unlike her first two victories, this time she was a professional player and a married woman.
18-year-old Diksha Dagar from India claimed her first win as a professional the following year (having just turned pro two months earlier) then 22-year-old Alice Hewson accomplished something similar twelve months later, winning on her first start on the Ladies European Tour. The Jacky Mercer Trophy for Leading Amateur in 2020 was also presented to Kaiyuree Moodley of South Africa.
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