Player Profile

“This tournament is very special to me and I’m really looking forward to playing in front of our
home fans and joining my fellow South Africans in hopefully claiming a home victory.”

Thriston Lawrence was eight years old when he first walked 18 holes watching his golf hero Ernie Els. Now Lawrence is making his fourth appearance in a Nedbank Golf Challenge which Els dominated.

The South African came close to winning “Africa’s Major” on his debut in 2022 when he was one shot off the lead going into the final round before finishing tied 13th.

Lawrence is a five-time winner on the DP World Tour and was voted the Tour’s 2022 Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year. He’s also challenged in the Majors, finishing fourth in the 2024 Open Championship and tied 12 th in this year’s US Open.

It’s been an incredible rise for a golfer born in Mbombela and whose father owned the Nelspruit Golf Club pro shop, allowing him to play as much golf as he liked.

Lawrence decided to leave school and turn professional at the age of 17, with no Plan B in his mind. But a maiden Sunshine Tour victory in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Stellenbosch in 2019 set him on his way, followed by his DP World Tour breakthrough in the 2021 Joburg Open.

A keen bass fisherman, Lawrence loves nothing more than to unwind on his bass boat at some of his favourite fishing spots in South Africa.

He is driven to always be the top-ranked South African golfer competing on the world stage, and a victory in a Nedbank Golf Challenge which his hero Els won three times and with a record score in 1999 will go a long way towards him achieving that goal.