JOHANNESBURG – Brandon Stone and Dylan Frittelli fell outside the world’s top 100 players on the Official World Golf Ranking when the latest list was released on Monday after the weekend’s tournaments around the world.
Stone fell from 99th to 102nd after he finished in a share of 75th in the European Tour’s abrdn Scottish Open in North Berwick on Sunday, and Frittelli missed the cut in the defence of his title in the John Deere Classic on the PGA Tour which had been put out by a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic as he slid to 106th, down 12 places from the previous week.
Louis Oosthuizen remains South Africa’s top golfer ahead of the Open Championship which tees off at Royal St George’s in Sandwich, England, on Thursday. He’s in 13th place, unchanged from last week as he goes in search of a second major championship title after coming so close in the PGA Championship and the US Open earlier this year. He won the Open in 2010 at St Andrews.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Dean Burmester were the only two South Africans inside the top 100 to improve their positions. Bezuidenhout is South Africa’s third best player behind Oosthuizen and Garrick Higgo, and he climbed one place to 45th after he finished in a share of 44th in the Scottish Open. Burmester finished in a share of 35th in the same tournament and leap-frogged Erik van Rooyen to become South Africa’s sixth-best golfer on the rankings list.
South Africa’s top 10:
1. Louis Oosthuizen 13 (unchanged)
2. Garrick Higgo 40 (down 2)
3. Christiaan Bezuidenhout 45 (up 1)
4. Branden Grace 62 (down 2)
5. Daniel van Tonder 87 (down 5)
6. Dean Burmester 95 (up 2)
7. Erik van Rooyen 96 (down 3)
8. Charl Schwartzel 99 (down 3)
9. Brandon Stone 102 (down 3)
10. Dylan Frittelli 106 (down 12)
SA Tour Golf