The Bank BRI Indonesia Open holds a special place in recent golf folklore and as many as seven Sunshine Tour players are in the field for the 2019 edition.
The event in Jakarta was the scene of Justin Harding’s first international win last year and sparked a run which leaves him on the verge of a PGA TOUR card.
He will teeing off at the Korn Ferry Finals this week but the likes of JC Ritchie, Daniel van Tonder and Neil Schietekat will be looking to play copy-cat.
Ritchie and Van Tonder are currently one and two on the local tour’s Order of Merit with multiple winner Schietekat and Philip Eriksson among the invitees. The latter is the reigning Dimension Data Pro-Am champion and a recent WGC participant.
The Pondok Indah Golf Course will also feature fellow Sunshine Tour pros in Jbe’ Kruger, who already has a win (2012 Avantha Masters) and five runner-up finishes among other successes in Asia, last year’s winner of the Mercuries Taiwan Masters Adilson da Silva and veteran Keith Horne, who boasts 11 top-10 finishes from that Tour, pegging it up.
The trio are regular members on the Asian Tour.
Harding’s 2018 had him earn a card immediately and he went on to win the next event, the Royal Cup. Those two wins came on the back of a pair of victories in eSwatini.
This week brings a further strengthening of the close collaborations and reciprocal opportunities between the Sunshine Tour and PGA Tour of Australasia.
