We have picked out three names to keep an eye on at this week’s Dimension Data Pro-Am, the third and final event of the European Challenge Tour’s 2021 South African Swing.
George Coetzee
World Number 97 George Coetzee tees it up for the first time in the South African Swing this week. He has not played competitively since missing the cut at the Kenya Savannah Classic supported by Absa in March, but had previously enjoyed a positive start to the 2021 Race to Dubai on the European Tour. He finished in a tie for 16th place at the Magical Kenya Open presented by Johnnie Walker and, prior to that, finished tied tenth at the Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers and 11th at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. The 34-year-old has previous in this event, having picked up the trophy in 2016 before finishing second to countryman Christiaan Bezuidenhout last year.
Marcel Siem
Germany’s Marcel Siem is a man who knows how to win. He has four European Tour wins to his name and, in the early stages of the Road to Mallorca, has showed signs of his best golf returning. At the season-opening Limpopo Championship, Siem finished in a tie for 25th place following a quadruple bogey nine on the 72nd hole with a spot in the play-off in his sights. It was a similar story at the Bain’s Whisky Cape Town Open the following week. Comfortably inside the cut line with four holes to play, Siem triple-bogeyed the par three 15th and then dropped a further shot on the next hole to miss the cut by one. If the 40-year-old can continue his good form and eradicate the costly holes, he could be one to watch this week.
Santiago Tarrio
Santiago Tarrio is a man to watch this year after a promising season on the Road to Mallorca in 2020, and he has already started to show signs of his prowess in South Africa over the last two weeks. He missed the cut at the Limpopo Championship but bounced back at last week’s Bain’s Whisky Cape Town Open, finishing sixth in the Mother City. This week he returns to a venue which holds good memories following a strong performance in 2020. The 30-year-old finished fourth at Fancourt Golf Estate last year, the leading European player, to kickstart his season which ended with a seventh placed finish on the Road to Mallorca Rankings.
