Nedbank Golf Challenge

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The Nedbank Golf Challenge is an annual golf tournament played over the Gary Player Country Club Course in Sun City, South Africa. It was inaugurated in 1981 and has had several previous names. Like most high profile unofficial tournaments in professional golf it takes place between the conclusion of the PGA Tour and European Tour official schedules in early November, and Christmas. It did not count for world ranking points, until the 2006 event, but nonetheless it attracted many of the world's highest ranked players prior to this.

The tournament is a twelve man invitational stroke play event. It was known as "The Million Dollar Challenge" in the early years. When it was first played in 1981 the purse was US$ 1 million, with a winner's share of $300,000. In 1987 the event was played on a "winner takes all" basis, with the winner claiming the whole of the million dollar purse. This was designed to overcome any qualms the world's top golfers might have about competing in South Africa during the apartheid era, and it was successful in doing this in many cases. In 1988 the winner's prize was again $1million, but additional prizes were introduced.

From 2000 to 2002 the first prize was US$2 million, which as of 2007 remains the largest tournament prize in the history of golf, but the following year the winner's share of the total prize find was reduced from more than half to around 30%. The standard winner's share on the PGA Tour is 18% and on the European Tour it is 16.67%. In 2006 the winner received $1.2 million out of a total purse of $4.385 million, so the prize distribution is now not far from the normal pattern for a professional tournament, once allowance is made for the small size of the field.

In 2006 the tournament carried Official World Golf Ranking points for the first time.

Year Player Country
2006 Jim Furyk Flag of United States United States
2005 Jim Furyk Flag of United States United States
2004 Retief Goosen Flag of South Africa South Africa
2003 Sergio García Flag of Spain Spain
2002 Ernie Els Flag of South Africa South Africa
2001 Sergio García Flag of Spain Spain
2000 Ernie Els Flag of South Africa South Africa
1999 Ernie Els Flag of South Africa South Africa
1998 Nick Price Flag of Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
1997 Nick Price Flag of Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
1996 Colin Montgomerie Flag of Scotland Scotland
1995 Corey Pavin Flag of United States United States
1994 Nick Faldo Flag of England England
1993 Nick Price Flag of Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
1992 David Frost Flag of South Africa South Africa
1991 Bernhard Langer Flag of Germany Germany
1990 David Frost Flag of South Africa South Africa
1989 David Frost Flag of South Africa South Africa
1988 Fulton Allem Flag of South Africa South Africa
1987 Ian Woosnam Flag of Wales Wales
1986 Mark McNulty Flag of Zimbabwe Zimbabwe(later became a Republic of Ireland citizen)
1985 Bernhard Langer Flag of Germany Germany
1984 Seve Ballesteros Flag of Spain Spain
1983 Seve Ballesteros Flag of Spain Spain
1982 Raymond Floyd Flag of United States United States
1981 Johnny Miller Flag of United States United States

As of 2006 the leading money winner in the event is Ernie Els with winnings of $7,271,000. [1]

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