Stinger GC builds ties with Sunshine Tour ahead of LIV event

By Ken Borland

Having delivered an LIV Golf event in South Africa, the Stinger Golf Club is now chasing a closer relationship with the Sunshine Tour and other traditional authorities of the sport in this country.

The LIV carnival will come to South Africa for the first time when Steyn City in Johannesburg hosts the maiden event on African soil from March 19-22. According to Stinger GC GM Richard Glover more than 100,000 tickets have already been sold for the four days.

LIV made a controversial entry into the golfing world in 2022, with the major tours, including the PGA and DP World, banning their players who joined the Saudi-backed rebel league. The Sunshine Tour always adopted a more conciliatory stance, allowing LIV golfers to play in their events.

Now that an LIV event will be played in South Africa, it threatens to overwhelm the traditional events with all the glitz, glamour, world-class fields and huge off-course entertainment they bring.

But Stinger GC — comprising team captain Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace and Dean Burmester — is eager to work with the Sunshine Tour and GolfRSA for the benefit of the sport as a whole in South Africa.

“LIV wants every team to have a ‘home game’, whether that means staging an event in a specific country or a region. But it’s meant a lot of grey hair for me to bring it to South Africa because you don’t want to ruin relationships with people who have done a lot for you,” Oosthuizen said at the announcement in Northgate that WeBuyCars are Stinger’s new partners.

“We’ve always had a good relationship with Thomas Abt and Selwyn Nathan of the Sunshine Tour, which is important for us. We now have a combined WhatsApp group and we help each other. Stinger put in some money to help sponsor the PGA Championship and we want to do more in this country because we know where we came from and a lot of people opened doors for us.”

Given that the foursome are basically able to print money in LIV Golf — they won more than $22m (R375m) between them in just the 2025 season — it is gratifying they are so eager to give back to South African golf, especially through the Stinger GC Foundation.

It is also great news that they are bringing some of the biggest names in golf — Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia and Marc Leishman among them — to South African audiences.

The Stinger foursome are also giving back by playing in the major Sunshine Tour co-sanctioned events, with Burmester, Grace and Oosthuizen competing in the Alfred Dunhill Championship this week at Royal Johannesburg.

We could potentially get some big players joining the field for the SA Open because it’s the week before we all head east.

—  Dean Burmester

All four are also due to tee it up in the South African Open at Stellenbosch Golf Club from February 26 to March 1.

And, in even bigger news, there is potential — and apparently some interest — from top LIV golfers from other countries to also play in the SA Open, which falls in an empty week in their schedule. The big Adelaide event ends on February 15, with the tour resuming in Hong Kong on March 5, so Stellenbosch could be a decent stopover for those travelling from the US.

“We could potentially get some big players joining the field for the SA Open because it’s the week before we all head east. For Americans, it could be a halfway stop to break the journey. We go to Hong Kong, Singapore and then Steyn City, so that would be four tournaments in a row,” Burmester said.

Springbok legend Bryan Habana was also revealed as the ambassador of Stinger GC and he praised the team for flying the flag of the republic so high overseas.

“There’s an authenticity, something very South African, about the team and South Africans will love that. Playing in the LIV, they’ve shown they can come together as a team and win for the country. They’re putting South Africa on the map and they fly the flag so beautifully,” Habana said.