Bringing the crowds back to the Sun City fairways
In the previous decade, when the Nedbank Golf Challenge was held in December and was able to attract top-10 players, Sun City was famous for the congestion that would occur throughout the resort as corporate South Africa and students would come flocking for their annual end-of-year party.
Crowds have dwindled since those days, as both the sport and the economy have changed, but last year’s Nedbank Golf Challenge was noticeable for the upturn in crowd figures and just a busier feel around the resort and on the fairways scattered amongst 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 secluded away in their air-conditioned marquees. And, given the success of 2017, they are going to drive for even bigger crowd numbers for this year’s tournament from November 8-11.
“The move from December, when it was the year-end function for most spectators, to November meant we had to worry about losing the public, especially the scholars and those writing matric exams, and we lost a lot of the day visitors we traditionally had. So we’ve been trying 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. The entertainment area was one of the highlights of last year’s tournament, we want to capitalise on that and its times will be extended for a lot longer. Circa are running the public areas and are bringing in a lot of variety,” Eugene Boniface, the group manager for content at Sun International, said.
Workmen have been on-site since April, with 14 600 square-metres of infrastructure being set up, and 1300 tonnes of scaffolding, with Circa promising a real amphitheatre around the 18th green. 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 change with grass now on the faces rather than sand, to make it more playable for the golfers after there were complaints.