Why LIV Golf star is playing in DP World Tour’s Nedbank Golf Challenge 

Branden Grace will make his DP World Tour return this week after accepting an invite to play in the Nedbank Golf Challenge.

The LIV golfer returns to his native South Africa to compete in a strong field at the iconic Gary Player Country Club.

PGA Tour players Justin Thomas and Max Homa will also tee it up in “Africa’s Major”, while defending champion Tommy Fleetwood is joined in the field by his fellow Ryder Cup heroes Justin Rose and Robert MacIntyre.

And home favourite Grace, who plays for the Stingers GC team, has been confirmed as the sole LIV representative at the event he won back in 2017.

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Eyebrows were raised in September when LIV players Louis Oosthuizen, Talor Gooch, Peter Uihlein and Hudson Swafford all played the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland after invites from the tournament’s main sponsor Johann Rupert.

It transpired that the quartet were all eligible for that $5m event because they had no outstanding sanctions for joining LIV, and handed in their tour memberships prior to joining the lucrative Saudi-backed series.

And the DP World Tour has confirmed to bunkered.co.uk that Grace’s case is identical, with the 35-year-old able to play as he did not take up any form of membership on the Europe-based circuit for the 2023 season.

Grace has won four times in South Africa and his addition following an invite from tournament sponsors Sun International has provided a boost to the event.

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He has a storied history in the tournament after becoming the first South African to win the Nedbank Golf Challenge in a decade with his one-shot victory six years ago.

Since joining LIV, Grace has won over $27million in prize money in just 21 events. He won an $8million bonus after finishing second in the individual standings during the inaugural season, while he has also had two runner-up finishes in 2023.

Grace’s Stingers GC teammates and countrymen Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel are not in the field in South Africa this week.

Ben Parsons joined bunkered as a Content Producer in 2023 and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.