Wednesday, 10th October 2007 at 10:04 pm

Furyk back to defend title at Sun City

No huge surprises on Wednesday, as the 2007 field was announced for the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City: Tiger, Phil and Vijay won’t be making the pilgrimage to the Gary Player Country Club (neither, one suspects, will be Desmond Tutu), but defending champion Jim Furyk leads an impressive cast for four days of quality golf at South Africa’s marquee tournament.

Happily for the locals, four home golfers are part of the field: Ernie Els, Rory Sabbatini, Sunshine Tour Order of Merit winner Charl Schwartzel, and former champion Retief Goosen, who wasn’t on the original list after an ordinary year by his stellar standards, but snuck in as an alternate after Korea’s KJ Choi withdrew. Henrik Stenson - runner-up to Furyk a year ago - was also a late addition after American Steve Stricker pulled out.

England’s Luke Donald, Australians Adam Scott and Geoff Ogilvy and perennial Sun City favourite Sergio Garcia form a young and exciting quartet at the tournament; and completing a dozen high calibre golfers put together by tournament director Alastair Roper are Open champion Padraig harrington, and South African-born Englishman Justin Rose. Every tournament without Tiger is judged as such these days, but it’s still a fine field at Sun City this year; Feverpitcher can’t wait to get stuck into the first spare ribs and cold beer come November 29.