Back in July, the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Championship (not to be confused with Alfred Dunhill Links Championship) announced a return to the venerable Royal Johannesburg Golf Club from Dec 11-14. But this shift from its former host, Leopard Creek, started off on the wrong foot, what with torrential rain putting a stop to practice rounds on Monday. That’s not the only thing, as a couple of pros have also decided to skip the event this time around. Starting with…

Tom McKibbin

Tom McKibbin had a pretty impressive 2025 season. Kicking off at LIV Golf Riyadh with a solid T15, he snagged 8 top 20 finishes on the LIV Tour and matched that performance on the DP World Tour. He didn’t make the cut at The Open, but still managed 7 top 20 finishes there. Overall, McKibbin had a decent run. In November, he clinched the Hong Kong Open, booking his ticket to the 2026 Masters and The Open. Just last week, he wrapped up the Nedbank Golf Challenge with a T16 finish.

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McKibbin has held his own at the Alfred Dunhill Championship, too. Since debuting with a T13 in 2022, he followed up with a T14 in 2023 and a T24 in 2024. Not bad. But this time, McKibbin is absent from the lineup.

Laurie Canter

By now, everyone in golf knows Laurie Canter’s news: after battling to regain his PGA Tour card following a rocky LIV stint, he dropped it at the last minute… and jumped back to LIV. Yes, even after making history as the first former LIV golfer at the 2025 Players Championship. Last week, Canter withdrew from the Nedbank Golf Challenge. He managed decent outings in the 2025 season.

In 2025, he notched 6 top 10 finishes, including a win at the Bapco Energies Bahrain Championship. At the Alfred Dunhill Championship, Canter’s record is a mixed bag: T42 last year, T14 in 2023, a near miss for the title with 3rd place in 2022, and a missed cut back in 2021. This time around, though, he’s sitting this one out.

Charl Schwartzel

Another LIV golfer on the list, Charl Schwartzel, had a pretty decent year like his peers. In 2025, he notched five top 20 finishes, including nearly snapping up his first LIV Golf title of the season with a 2nd place at LIV Golf Miami. With 11 DPWT wins under his belt, Schwartzel played less often on other tours this season. Still, he managed a T36 at the Masters and a T46 at the 2025 Investec South African Open Championship.

On the other hand, Schwartzel has had a decent run at the Alfred Dunhill Championship. Last season, he wrapped up Sunday at T15. In 2023, though, he nearly snagged the title. Only Louis Oosthuizen stood in his way, leaving Charl in a solid second place. Definitely a more promising result than the time he missed the cut.

But…

Sure, that pretty much wraps it up for you. But there are still many strong names to keep an eye out for this week. The defending champion, Shaun Norris, is back on the field. And sure, the course is different, but he will surely find plenty of tough competition from Branden Grace, Jayden Schaper, and Louis Oosthuizen, among many other pros.