Its winners include Miller, Ballesteros, Langer, Woosnam, Faldo, Price, Els, Garcia and Goosen. And other multiple major-title holders Nicklaus, Player, Trevino, Floyd, Tiger and McIlroy have all competed at some point.
Masters?
The Open Championship?
The Honda Classic?
Nope.
It's the original golf-washing tale - one of excess, politics, and competitor apathy that feels all too familiar - The Nedbank Golf Challenge formerly known as the "Million Dollar".
Image Source: Nedbankgolfchallenge.com
It was 1975 and South Africa was in the throws of the oppressive apartheid era, characterized by racial segregation and isolation. Human rights violations were rife. Whilst the country's gold mines kept its balance sheet healthy, the United Nations slapped it with boycotts. Amidst the chaos a young and ambitious South African hotelier, Sol Kerzner, saw an opportunity, skirted the complex rules, and built Sun City, a Vegas-inspired resort aimed at indulging entertainment-starved elites.
Image: The Palace of the Lost City
Despite the risks, Kerzner lured global stars with hefty paychecks, brushing aside UN blacklisting threats. Frank Sinatra performed at the grand opening, followed by acts like Elton John and Queen—sparking social backlash and anti-apartheid protests. Sports figures weren’t spared either, with some succumbing to lucrative offers while others stood firm on moral grounds.
When the building of the resort was given the go-ahead Kerzner wasted no time in bringing famed South African golfer Gary Player into the fray to design (and lend his name to) what would become South Africa's most famous (but certainly not its best) golf course. Player was at the peak of his illustrious playing career having won both the Masters and The Open in 1974. There would prove to be no better long-term ambassador for Kerzner's dream.
Player’s design embraced the challenges of the terrain, introducing water features, bunker-heavy fairways, and uniquely shaped, contoured greens. The surrounding flora and fauna added charm, with baboons on the fairways and the Big 5 animals in the adjacent Pilanesberg Reserve.
While the resort exuded artificial excess, the walking-only course offered a more authentic escape for golf enthusiasts.
Opened in 1979, it became South Africa’s most significant golf project since the 1930s, cementing its place in history with the launch of the Million Dollar Challenge in 1981.
The tournament’s debut field boasted legends like Nicklaus, Miller, Trevino, Ballesteros, and Player himself. The eye-popping $1 million purse—ten times the first prize at The Open Championship—turned heads worldwide. By 1987, the event adopted a winner-takes-all format, with Ian Woosnam becoming the first golfer in the world to pocket $1 million from a single tournament.
To provide context, the PGA Tour’s top earner that year, Curtis Strange, amassed $925,000—across 27 events. The staggering disparity epitomized Sun City’s extravagance but also drew sharp criticism for its ties to apartheid-era South Africa.
As Scott Olster wrote in the LA Times in 1987:
"Guys like Ian Woosnam, by playing sports [in South Africa], are hammering away, shoring up apartheid against the storm of outside opinion."
Tom Kershaw of The Independent echoed this sentiment in 2018, likening the event to modern-day controversies:
"It would be as though Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and Justin Rose visited Damascus to take part in an absurdly lucrative event at the behest of the Assads. Heck, if the world’s most famous sports stars were to conglomerate in, say, Qatar in spite of incessant Human Rights exploitation we will still watch won’t we?""
The winner-takes-all format ended in 1989, but the Million Dollar Challenge continued to attract top talent. By the 2000s, however, the emergence of Tiger Woods’ December event (now the Hero World Challenge) and increasing purses on established tours diminished its allure.
This year, the Nedbank Golf Challenge is on the opening swing event of the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai, boasting a full field and a course (at altitude) stretched to nearly 8,000 yards. Max Homa returns to defend his title and faces off against other top PGA Tour names such as Will Zalatoris and Cory Conners as well as the regular strong DP World Tour field. The event remains a cherished fixture in South Africa, drawing significant crowds—nearly 80,000 in 2023.
During apartheid, South Africans had limited access to world-class events, whether on television or in person. For many golf enthusiasts in the country, the Million Dollar was more than just a tournament—it was a cherished annual highlight.
As kids of the 80's the tournament TV coverage would mark the start of the summer holidays, and we would switch between garden cricket, swimming, and the tense final rounds on Sunday afternoons - hoping for David Frost or Nick Price to lift the trophy.
I attended in 1998 and saw Tiger do this (tough to top as a golf moment):
The parallels between the Million Dollar and LIV Golf are striking. Both offered unprecedented payouts, drew criticism for moral compromises, and disrupted the traditional golf ecosystem.
Intriguingly, some of the key figures overlap. Gary Player remains a Golf Saudi ambassador, while Donald Trump—a vocal LIV supporter—has longstanding ties to Player and Kerzner.
Featuring many of South Africa's best players, LIV Golf has already found a receptive audience on the continent, and speculation about a future event at the Gary Player Country Club feels less like a question of if and more like when.
Should that happen, it would complete a fascinating, if controversial, full circle.
Images: Trump with Sol Kerzner (Top), Trump and Player (left), Player (right).
great article!