Jonsson Workwear Open - Fantasy DP World Tour ones to watch

The African Swing comes to a conclusion this week as the Jonsson Workwear Open makes its debut on the DP World Tour.

Winner of this event on the European Challenge Tour last season JC Ritchie returns to The Club at Steyn City to defend his title, while two-time 2023 DP World Tour winner Ockie Strydom looks for another victory on home soil. 

If you have not done so already, you can sign up to play the official 2023 DP World Tour Fantasy game and submit your six-man team before round one gets under way on Thursday: https://fantasy.dpworldtour.com/ 

The 2023 season-long winner will win a trip to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai next year, enjoy a lesson with a DP World Tour professional and a round of golf on the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates. For more information on this amazing prize and others, read here.

Favourite - Adri Arnaus

The Spaniard arrives this week off the back of a second-placed finish at the SDC Championship and as the highest ranked player in the field on the Official World Golf Ranking. A man who looked at home on Tour from the moment he graduated from the Challenge Tour in 2018, he has improved his end-of-season position on the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex every year since finishing 41st thanks to three runner-up finishes in his rookie campaign. A winner at last year's Catalunya Championship, Arnaus has missed two of six cuts this season but when he has made the weekend, he has made it count, adding a 30th, a 13th and a sixth to last week's runner-up spot. He is currently the most-picked player this week in just over 50 per cent of teams after rising to 15th in the Fantasy Rankings.

Form Horse - Julien Brun

It has been quite the sophomore season on Tour for the Frenchman who currently sits 13th in the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex. His season-opening third-placed finish in Mauritius may not have racked up any Fantasy points but finishing fifth in Dubai, 12th in Singapore and seventh in Kenya certainly did and he has brought that momentum with him to South Africa. He was right in the mix last week before fading away at the weekend but surely that first DP World Tour win cannot be too far away. Brun features in just under 25 per cent of teams this week but could still be a sleeper on the captaincy front, with last week the first time he has been captain for more than one per cent of players.

Wild Card - Oliver Bekker

The South African's average Fantasy total of 89.17 points from six events may not make for impressive reading but if you look deeper there is plenty of appeal to be found in Bekker. His best finish in a Ranking event may be just 32nd but he is trending in the right direction having achieved that last week and had two top tens before the game started in Abu Dhabi. He also won in South Africa on the Challenge Tour last month and if you add in a top ten over this layout at last season's Steyn City Championship, the 38-year-old's form is better than his numbers suggest. And players may be picking up on that as he is in just over 20 per cent of squads for this week.

Looking back - SDC Championship

What a week it was for Matthew Baldwin at St Francis Links, as the 37-year-old - who has moved between the Challenge and DP World Tours over an 11-year spell punctuated by injury - won on his 200th DP World Tour start. Incredibly, he was selected by just 1.71 per cent of players, with just 14 (0.06 per cent) making him captain. Bravo if you were one of those! As well as Baldwin and those 14 shrewd players, it was a good week for this column, with Favourite Antoine Rozner finishing third and Form Horse Joost Luiten ninth.

2023 DP World Tour Fantasy player rankings