Chicago Preview: Stingers look for greater consistency, and rugby inspiration, at Bolingbrook
BOLINGBROOK, Illinois – Stinger GC has produced roller-coaster form during the 2024 LIV Golf season and, with just two events left, the all-South African combination is aiming to emulate the winning consistency shown by the Springbok rugby team in recent weeks.
South Africa's Springboks recorded their fourth successive Test victory over New Zealand's All Blacks in Cape Town on Saturday, coming from behind to win 18-12, and they remain unbeaten in the 2024 Rugby Championship. Just one week earlier in Johannesburg, South Africa beat New Zealand 31-27.
"In our country right now, everything is on a high," Stingers captain Louis Oosthuizen said while he and his team prepared for Friday's opening round at LIV Golf Chicago. "When our rugby is doing that well, the whole country is very positive. Hopefully we can feed off that in these last two tournaments. The rugby guys are showing what can be done, and hopefully we can do the same in LIV Golf."
The Stingers have been hit-or-miss in their first 12 LIV Golf starts this season and are well aware that greater consistency is needed after clinching four podium finishes while also producing five results of ninth or worse.
Their best performance was a runner-up spot in Adelaide, where they were agonizingly beaten in a playoff for the title by Ripper GC, while their lowest moment came in Las Vegas, where they struggled in surprisingly cold temperatures before finishing 12th out of 13.
"I don't know why we have been so up-and-down," Oosthuizen said of his team's collective form this season. "It just seems like the four of us either play really well or we pick the same day to not play well. If you look at the other teams, they have two guys playing really well and the other guy playing average. I don't think we do that.
"Either all four of us are firing on all cylinders or we have that day where we come and you're like, 'Man, we were the Stinkers today, not the Stingers, because we couldn't get it going.' Hopefully next year as a team we are, scoring-wise, a little bit better."
There is still plenty for the Stingers to play for in these last two events of the 2024 season. They currently sit seventh in the team standings - 47 points outside third place, which is the final seed to earn a first-round bye for the season-ending Team Championship to be played in Texas next week.
Although they are no longer in the running for any of those three byes, they will certainly fancy their chances of performing well in Texas during the first two days of match play.
Before that, however, there is this week at Bolingbrook Golf Club where the season-long Individual Championship will be decided and player status for 2025 will be determined.
While only Legion XIII's Jon Rahm and Torque GC's Joaquin Niemann will compete for the Individual Championship, the next five players in points will vie for the final podium position and Oosthuizen is among those after proving himself as one of the most successful players in LIV Golf during 2024.
"I feel that I have played well when I had opportunities to play well," said Oosthuizen, who has been a runner-up this season in both Jeddah and Adelaide and currently sits fifth in the individual standings. "I have kept everything together pretty good. I think the end of the year last year - when I got those two DP World Tour wins - got my game in a good space. Ever since then, my game has been pretty solid."
Oosthuizen won the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek early last December before clinching the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open just seven days later. He has replicated much of that form in LIV Golf this year, and has posted three straight top-10s in his last three starts.
He has been LIV Golf's best scrambler this season (74.48 percent) and ranks second in putting average, but he has yet to win his first individual title.
"I don't know why I haven't won this season," said the 41-year-old, who clinched the 2010 Open Championship at St Andrews. "Obviously I had a few chances, but it always seemed like I was just that little bit too far behind and then in trying to get there - to second or third - I just wasn't getting close enough early on in the last round.
"But I am playing pretty good. I think if I play pretty solid this week like I've been playing, I can give myself some kind of opportunity. I need to definitely start a lot faster on a Sunday."