Aron Zemmer is up for the challenge of competing with the Sunshine Tour players at this week’s season-opening Limpopo Championship, which takes place at Euphoria Golf Club from April 22-25, 2021.
The Italian finished 47th on the Road to Mallorca Rankings in 2020 and begins his season in South Africa this week as he embarks on the first of three co-sanctioned events with the Sunshine Tour.
Zemmer believes that the Sunshine Tour players hold a slight advantage over their Challenge Tour counterparts this week, but the 30-year-old is ready for the task in hand.
“It’s good that they co-operate together because it gives us a bigger chance to compete, as well as the Sunshine Tour players,” he said. “I think Sunshine Tour players down here have a little advantage because they know their grass and the circumstances, but we’re up for the challenge.
“The altitude is around the same as Joburg, so you add around ten per cent. I know the guys who play in yards basically play the same numbers but in metres. I’m going to add ten per cent to my yardages.
“You need a good game off the tee and keep it in play because the rough is really hard to judge how the ball is going to come out. That is going to be key this week and also the putting, because the greens look good so holing a lot of putts will benefit your game.”
The former Alps Tour player admits he is happy to have swapped the chilly temperatures of Europe at last week’s Austrian Golf Open for the warmer climes of South Africa and is excited to get his Challenge Tour season under way.
“It was very different because we had one degree weather in Austria, and rain as well, but now we’re here in lovely South Africa with approximately 25 degrees,” he said. “It’s nice weather, a good course and should be a good week.
“Courses down here are a very good layout and the landscape as well is very different to Europe. The courses here are more open and left and right you have bush, rather than in Europe you might have trees and stuff like that.
“This is real Africa. There’s not much around here; no cities or anything but we’re in a bubble anyway so we just go to the golf course and I’m staying at a game lodge, that’s about it.”
