Christiaan Bezuidenhout

Moved into the world’s top 40 with back-to-back commanding victories late in 2020, both in his home country. After a four-stroke success at the Alfred Dunhill Championship, he marched to a five-shot win in the South African Open.

His maiden European Tour title came in the 2019 Estrella Damm NA Andalucia Masters at Valderrama. The event formed part of The Open Qualifying Series and Bezuidenhout, who at the age of two mistakenly drank rat poison and then developed a stammer, won it by six from a field which included Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm.

Three months earlier he was ranked only 576th when he was part of a nine-way tie for second place behind compatriot Justin Harding at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, and a week before his win he came joint-third in the BMW International Open.

That finish was repeated in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth the same season, while early in 2020 he lost a play-off to Lucas Herbert at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and a month later won the Sunshine Tour’s Dimension Data Pro-Am.

In 2015 he topped the “Big Easy” developmental tour, then was runner-up to Brandon Stone in the 2016 South African Open.