Closed Golf Courses in Zimbabwe takes Stephen Ferreira to South Africa

Stephen Ferreira

Stephen Ferreira, Photo: Octávio Passos

Stephen Ferreira heads to South Africa to play golf

The Portuguese Professional Golfer nº 3 in the World Golf Ranking waits for the start of the Sunshine Golf Tour ( the highest level of competition for male professional golfers ) in March.

Stephen Ferreira chose to travel to South Africa to train and prepare in the best way the start of the 2021/2022 season of the Sunshine Golf Tour after Zimbabwe declared the closure of golf courses as one of the measures to combat the pandemic of COVID -19.

“The situation (of the pandemic) in Zimbabwe is not bad, but it is not good when it comes to golf, because the golf courses are closed again,” Stephen Ferreira told Tee Times Golf Agency exclusively for Record.

«I am thinking of going to South Africa to be able to train again on the golf courses and prepare myself well», added the third-best Portuguese Professional Golfer in the World Golf Ranking.

Stephen Ferreira is a member of the Sunshine Golf Tour, the first division of the South African Professional Circuit, and was supposed to start the 2021/2022 season in February, with three golf tournaments co-organized with the Challenge Golf Tour, the second European division.

However, the Challenge Golf Tour announced a week ago that these three events will have to be postponed to April due to the pandemic.

Following this Challenge Golf Tour decision, the Sunshine Golf Tour decided to delay the start of its competitive.

In the statement from the South African Professional Golf Circuit, it reads: “The Sunshine Golf Tour announced the postponement of its 2021 calendar by one month, due to the increase in cases of COVID-19 and as a way of supporting the request of Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa for that all South Africans work together to help fight the spread of the virus.

Sunshine Golf Tour Commissioner Thomas Abt said the circuit will begin with a new tournament, the Kit Kat Group Pro-Am, from March 5-7. The called “South African Swing” of the Challenge Golf Tour will start on the 22nd of April, extending for three weeks of joint competition.

In between, there will be four more Sunshine Golf Tour events: The Players Championship that starts on March 11th, the Gauteng Championship on March 18th, the Serengeti Invitational on March 25th and Zanaco Masters on April 15th.

This means that Sunshine Golf Tour players will appear on the “South African Swing” much more competitive than Challenge Golf Tour athletes and Stephen Ferreira will be able to take advantage of this to add precious points to the Challenge Golf Tour ranking, the race to Majorca.

This start of the season will be very important for Stephen Ferreira for two main reasons: first, because one of his dreams is to represent Portugal at the Tokyo Olympic Games and, for that, he needs to add many points in these tournaments that count for the world ranking and the Olympic ranking. Secondly, because he gets good rankings in the three tournaments co-organized with the Challenge Golf Tour, he may have more invitations to play frequently in the second European division.

In 2020 Stephen Ferreira played five golf tournaments on the European Golf Tour (the first European division) and his best performance was his 28th position (-7) at the Portuguese Open at Royal Óbidos Golf Course. He also entered four Challenge Golf Tour events and the highest point was the 27th position (-4) in the Limpopo Golf Championship (in South Africa). In these nine tournaments, he cut five of them.

Tee Times Golf Agency will follow all the golf tournaments, publicizing their results and wishes to Stephen Ferreira the best scores ever.

Source: Hugo Ribeiro / Tee Times Golf (teetimes.pt) for Record