Daniel van Tonder is eyeing automatic promotion to the DP World Tour by becoming the first player to win three consecutive HotelPlanner Tour events as he prepares to tee it up in this week’s Cell C Cape Town Open in association with Honor.
The 12-time Sunshine Tour winner sits in pole position on the Road to Mallorca Rankings after back-to-back victories at the SDC Open and last week’s MyGolfLife Open hosted by Pecanwood Estate and he will now look to secure the treble in Cape Town, which will subsequently earn the South African immediate DP World Tour playing rights.
The 33-year-old, who also leads the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit, is reaping the rewards of the hard work he has put in over the past year.
“It’s been an amazing start to the year,” he said. “I’ve been working really hard over the last year or two and finally the results are coming through. Everything has clicked in my game and my putting especially has been great.
“It would be fantastic to get my third win of the season and get back to the DP World Tour. To win three in a row would be special but I’m trying not to think too much about that and just focus on winning as many tournaments as I can. I’m playing well so it’s important to capitalise on that.
“I knew I was playing well coming into these events. I don’t like taking days off so every day I have been practicing and working on different parts of my game. At the end of the day, it’s about self-belief and believing that you can win out there.”
Van Tonder will tee it up this week in the third of four consecutive co-sanctioned tournaments between the HotelPlanner Tour and Sunshine Tour and he was delighted to have made such a strong start to the year on home soil.
“My goal is to get back to the DP World Tour as quickly as possible but also to win the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit,” he said. “That would get me into a couple of the Majors and the Nedbank Golf Challenge which would be great because I’ve been trying to get into those for a while.”
The South African would become the 15th HotelPlanner Tour player to win three or more titles in the same season to earn automatic promotion to the DP World Tour, with Englishman John Parry and Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen both achieving the feat in 2024.
The first round will get under way at 6:30am local time, with van Tonder teeing it up alongside two-time DP World Tour winner James Morrison and German Freddy Schott at 7:30am.
