The 2013 Champion is

The 2013 Champion is:

So the SOS Golf Tour season recently ended and the 2013 champion is Ryan “Bernie” Bernberg. He walked away with a narrow but well deserved win and was crowned SOS Golf Tour Champion for 2013. He managed to climb from second on this year’s leader board to take first spot away from Andrew Hart. He also went one better than his second place overall finish in 2012.

The year-end tour at Elements and Zebula in 2013 was a great success and the 2012 SOS Champion Gareth Greensill walked away with the Tour Final’s trophy for his outstanding and consistent performance over the two final rounds of 2013.

Player’s Player:

Andrew Hart, who won four Tour rounds in 2013 was crowned SOS Player’s Player of the Year. He took this prize from the Tour’s overall champion, who won player’s player in 2012. Blue Steel played outstanding golf during the year and unfortunately couldn’t muster that form on yearend tour. He eventually finished third behind J Bomber and Damian Murphy. That “Protea-Styled” collapse earned Andrew the new nickname Hartichoke for the 2014 Tour season…

Spirit of Golf:

The 2013 Spirit of Golf award was given to Chad Campbell. This award is given to that player who best embraces the SOS Golf Tour and the spirit of the game of golf. Chewbacca not only improved his golf during 2013, but also took on a host of challenges and took on all that the SOS stands for – fun and golf…

Golf Course of the year:

A new award for 2013 was the Golf Course of the Year award. Of the 13 courses played, the list was narrowed down to three favourites. Eye of Africa, Glendower and The Lost City were all in the running, but in the end, it was the SA Open host course Glendower that walked away with the award. The award is given to a course that offers good value for money, something unique, great playability and an overall golfing appeal.

New Fines and Rules for 2014:

Importantly for 2014, some things on the Tour will change. We have added a Fines Master for each round of the 2014 season. This person will be chosen from the leader board of each round. The person that finishes in 13^th place will be the fines host for the following round. As Mike Moolman finished the 2013 season in 13^th, he will be the host for the first fines session of 2014. The Pink Ball fine for each round will be replaced with the Fines Master’s own special fine. This fine is only valid for a single round and the Master is also responsible for setting out clear rules for that specific fine.

All members of the SOS Golf Tour must have an official handicap. Official handicaps are limited to a tour maximum of 27. Non-handicapped members of the SOS Golf Tour will get a Tour chosen handicap, less two strokes.

The most exciting, or terrifying rule to be added to the 2014 rules is the putter rule. If the putter comes out of the bag, it counts as a putt. So if you want to putt out of the bunker, it will be marked as a putt on your scorecard.

Here is a breakdown of all the nicknames for 2014: