Bid to woo fans back is gathering pace
Ken Borland
In the previous decade, when the Nedbank Golf Challenge (NGC) was held in December and was able to attract top-10 players, Sun City was famous for the congestion that occurred as corporate South Africa and students flocked there for their annual end-of-year parties.
Crowds have dwindled since then as both the sport and the economy have changed, but last year’s tournament saw an upturn in crowd figures and a busier feel around the resort and on the fairways scattered among the ancient volcanic craters of the Pilanesberg.
A major reason for that was the focus Sun International and their hospitality partners Circa put on making the whole NGC experience more spectator-friendly and not just an event catering for the corporates safely in their air-conditioned marquees. And, given the success of 2017, they are driving for even bigger crowd numbers for this year’s tournament from November 8-11.
“The move from December, when it was the year-end func- tion for most spectators, to November meant we would lose the public, especially scholars and those writing matric exams, and we lost a lot of the day visitors we traditionally had. So we’ve tried to make sure we bring those crowds back and the crowds are getting back to the way we begun with, with more than 65 000 people coming to Sun City.
“So this year we’re making even more space for the public, without changing things for the corporates. We’re opening up a huge amount more space on 18 with a three-tier structure that has a lot more ground-level space and will provide great public viewing,” said Eugene Boniface, the group manager for content at Sun International.
Apart from the focus on making the Nedbank Golf Challenge more crowd-friendly, work has also been going on on the course.
The 17th tee has been moved around to add 30-odd metres to the tee-shot and make it more difficult, while the bunkers have undergone massive changes with grass now on the faces rather than sand.