Golfers, and athletes of all sports really, take pride in where they’re from. Whether it’s the state, city or area code – you always notice players wanting to rep their home area.
The whole Ryder Cup is basically built on the principle of competing and representing where you’re from.
Fans tend to do the same thing. It’s always more fun to pull for a player when they’re from your home state (or even your hometown).
With all that in mind, we went through the World Golf Rankings and pulled the home states (or countries) of every player in the top 200 (as of 5/19/23).
There are 28 countries (29 including the US) with at least one player representing them in the top 200.
South Africa is one of those countries. In fact, South Africa has 13 players in the top 200, second most of any country outside the US (second to England with 15).
Men’s Golfers from South Africa
Here are the 13 golfers from South Africa in the World Golf Rankings top 200 in the spring of 2023 including what town they’re from.
| Name | City |
|---|---|
| Aaron Wise | Cape Town |
| Christiaan Bezuidenhout | Delmas |
| Dean Burmester | |
| Erik van Rooyen | Johannesburg |
| Garrick Higgo | Johannesburg |
| Hennie Du Plessis | Kempton Park |
| Justin Rose | Johannesburg |
| Louis Oosthuizen | Mossel Bay |
| MJ Daffue | Pretoria |
| Ockie Strydom | Kempton Park |
| Oliver Bekker | Pretoria |
| Thriston Lawrence | Mbombela |
| Zander Lombard | Pretoria |
Hall of Fame Golfers from South Africa
I figured someone searching for current players from the country of South Africa would probably also be interested in the Hall of Fame players from there as well.
So, here are the two players I found from South Africa in the World Golf Hall of Fame:
| Name | City | Induction Year |
|---|---|---|
| Retief Goosen | Pietersburg | 2019 |
| Ernie Els | Johannesburg | 2011 |
| Nick Price | Durban, Natal | 2003 |
| Bobby Locke | Germiston | 1977 |
| Gary Player | Johannesburg | 1974 |
Golf Hometown Fun Facts
England has the most players in the top 200 of any country outside the US. They’re followed by South Africa (13), Japan (12) and South Korea and Australia with 9 each.
To give you some context to how that compares to US States – California has the most golfers of any state in the top 200 with 21. Second most is Texas with 8, followed by Florida (7), and North Carolina and South Carolina with 5 each.
More Countries
We have a complete library of resource pages that cover the hometowns of golfers from over 50 different US states and countries.
Here are a few of the other countries that we have:
Current Pro Men’s Golfers from Zimbabwe