Ashleigh Buhai is the only South African to have won a major in the last 13 years. Why isn’t she celebrated more?
Ashleigh Buhai, South Africa’s only major golf champion over the last 13 years, remains under appreciated despite her 2022 AIG Women’s Open victory and impressive career earnings, highlighting the gender disparity in recognition and earnings in South African golf. Picture: The R&A.
Image: The R&A.
South African golf is in a strange place at the moment. LIV Golf is coming to the country next year. Aldrich Potgieter is the longest hitter on the PGA TOUR, and it’s now been 13 years since a South African won a major.
That last stat is often repeated, but it’s not quite true. There has been a South African major winner since Ernie Els won the 2012 Open Championship, and she happens to be a woman.
That golfer, of course, is Ashleigh Buhai. Now aged 36, Buhai was a surprise winner in the AIG Women’s Open at Muirfield, Scotland, in 2022.
Buhai also managed a second LPGA Tour victory in 2023 at the ShopRite LPGA Classic and won for the fifth time on the Ladies European Tour as she claimed her fourth SA Women’s Open title the same year.
Buhai’s Fading Presence in Golfing Circles
As Buhai hasn’t won since then, it seems the former prodigy is not even mentioned much in golfing circles.
As an avid golfer myself, I seldom, if ever, hear Buhai talked about on South African golf courses or clubhouses.
Only dedicated followers of women’s golf in SA seem to track her performances regularly or remember that incredible triumph three years ago.
The men, meanwhile, are paid vast sums of money in comparison.
Buhai’s Impressive Career Earnings vs. Burmester’s LIV Golf Victory
Buhai currently has career earnings around the $5.19 million or R92 million mark. In a vacuum, that’s an excellent career earnings tally.
However, compare that to Dean Burmester, who pocketed around R77 million for his victory in the LIV Golf Miami event last year. He nearly surpassed Buhai’s career earnings from one event on the Saudi-funded breakaway tour, which does not even count for world rankings points.
Since Els won The Open all those years ago, only Louis Oosthuizen has managed a second place in the majors— although he managed this feat an incredible four times between 2015 and 2021.
Yet, if you ask any SA golf fan who their favourite local golfer is, they will likely rattle off the names of the top men like, Oosthuizen, Potgieter or Christiaan Bezuidenhout (the top two in the world rankings) and not give a legendary performer like Buhai a second thought.
I also don’t use the term legendary lightly, but if a player wins a major, that’s exactly what they are in my opinion. It just feels like time we recognise Buhai as one of the best SA players over the last decade and a half.
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