Bryson DeChambeau<\/a> in a long drive competition, but as the league\u2019s best putter in 2025, he can grind as well as most players in the league. Schwartzel\u2019s value is at its peak when he\u2019s playing alongside a teammate in the team competition, but as a player in his early 40s, he\u2019ll need to remain sharp and earn points individually if he\u2019s to nab a precious Lock Zone spot at the end of the year.<\/p>\nBranden Grace:\u00a0Grace knows all too well how difficult it is to play with the pressure of avoiding the Drop Zone for\u00a0a large portion\u00a0of the season. Two years ago, he finished in the Drop Zone, but what was brought back to the team. Last year, that was no longer\u00a0an option, and Grace had to scratch and claw for every available point before getting hot towards the end of the season and finishing in the Open Zone. In 2026, Grace will want to get off to a fast start to sidestep that unwanted stress for a third consecutive year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
WHAT THE STATS SUGGEST\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2025, the Southern Guards displayed an elite short game. They ranked fourth in the league in scrambling and second in putting. They were in the middle of the pack in both greens in regulation (sixth) and birdies made (sixth).\u00a0<\/p>\n
WHERE CAN THEY IMPROVE?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Southern Guards\u2019 most glaring area of weakness is off the tee. They are neither long (eighth) nor accurate (seventh) with the driver and tend to rely on their short game to score.\u00a0<\/p>\n
KEY QUOTES\u00a0<\/p>\n
Louis Oosthuizen on the rebrand to Southern Guards GC: “Yeah, look,\u00a0it’s\u00a0a new chapter for us. Felt like we have our own identity now.\u00a0We’ve\u00a0built such a nice brand with Stinger GC, but this is the way forward for us, get the South African spirit in there, get the rhino in there, and\u00a0we’re\u00a0very excited\u00a0about what we can do going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Louis Oosthuizen on LIV Golf South Africa: “South Africa was obviously a massive thing for us to get the tournament. We had some\u00a0great help\u00a0from LIV and from other\u00a0sportsmen\u00a0to get it in the country, and I can tell you the fans are ready for it. Everyone is\u00a0very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Louis Oosthuizen on the symbolism of the Rhino in the new logo: \u201cI think rhinos\u00a0are\u00a0pretty close\u00a0to everyone\u2019s heart in South Africa and then we have Dean\u2019s (Burmester) charity, which is Birdies for Rhinos. We just think\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0really good\u00a0symbol for our team.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
BOTTOM LINE\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Southern Guards may not be the flashiest team on LIV Golf, but they are extremely deep. The South Africans are connected on and off the golf course and they bring the best out of each other, embodying their \u201cubuntu\u201d mantra. They\u2019ll once again be an extremely competitive group and are always one of the toughest outs in the Team Championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
THREE BOLD PREDICTIONS\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dean Burmester will finish top 10 in a major championship after qualifying.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Louis Oosthuizen will finish in the Lock Zone after finishing 30th last season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
They will win at least one team event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PLAYER SPOTLIGHTS\u00a0 Louis Oosthuizen: Oosthuizen is coming off the worst season of his LIV Golf career but should…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-430178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}