John Cook

ScoresLive tracks live golf scores for every major PGA Tour event, DP World Tour tournament and golf Major championship. The leaderboard updates round by round, showing each player's position, score to par, holes completed and round-by-round totals. Visit our golf live scores page to see who is leading right now.

A golf leaderboard shows each player's position, name, score to par (shown as -10, E for even or +3), how many holes they have completed that round (THRU), today's score (TODAY), and individual round scores R1, R2, R3 and R4. A minus sign means the player is under par, which is good. A plus sign means they are over par. E means they are exactly on par.

South Africa has a remarkable Major-winning history. Gary Player won nine Majors and completed the career Grand Slam. Bobby Locke won four Open Championships. Ernie Els won four Majors, Retief Goosen won the US Open twice, Louis Oosthuizen won The Open in 2010, Charl Schwartzel won the 2011 Masters and Trevor Immelman won the 2008 Masters. These champions make South Africa one of the most successful golfing nations in the world.

The Nedbank Golf Challenge is South Africa's flagship golf tournament, long known as Africa's Major. It is played every November at the Gary Player Country Club at Sun City in the North West province and is co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour. The event attracts a strong international field to one of the most challenging courses in the country and is the highlight of the domestic golf season.

Par is the number of shots a scratch golfer is expected to take to complete each hole or the full round. If a course is par 72 and a player shoots 65, they are -7 (7 under par). This is excellent. If they shoot 78, they are +6 (6 over par). In tournament golf, the lowest score to par across all completed rounds wins the event.

Most professional golf tournaments use a cut after 36 holes (two rounds). The bottom half of the field is eliminated and only the top players continue for rounds 3 and 4. The cut line is usually set at the score of the player in 65th position or lowest score within 10 shots of the leader, depending on the tour. Players who miss the cut receive no prize money and earn no ranking points.

The four golf Major championships are The Masters Tournament (held at Augusta National Golf Club, Georgia, every April), the PGA Championship (May, rotating US venues), the US Open Championship (June, rotating US venues) and The Open Championship, also known as the British Open (July, rotating links courses across Britain and Ireland). These four events carry the most prestige, ranking points and prize money in world golf.

Several South African events carry DP World Tour status, usually clustered in the local summer. These include the South African Open, one of the oldest national opens in golf, the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek near the Kruger National Park, and the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City. These events give South African fans the chance to watch world-class golf on home soil and bring international stars to the country.

The DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour) is one of the premier professional golf circuits in the world. It covers events across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, including a strong run of tournaments in South Africa. The season climaxes with the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. South African players have always been prominent members of the tour, continuing a tradition built by Gary Player and Ernie Els.

LIV Golf is a Saudi Public Investment Fund-backed golf series that launched in 2022. It uses a shotgun start format, 54-hole tournaments with no cut, and team competition alongside individual rankings. Several well-known players have joined LIV, including former Major champions. LIV Golf and the PGA Tour have been in discussions over the structure of the professional game, and LIV events are not currently part of the Official World Golf Ranking as a standalone circuit.

Golf is a popular betting sport in South Africa. The main markets are outright winner (back a player to win the full tournament), each way (win or place in the top 5, 6, 8, 10 or 20 depending on the event and bookmaker), top 5 or top 10 finish, make or miss the cut, and head-to-head matchup betting between two named players. South African sportsbooks such as Hollywoodbets, Betway and Sportingbet offer golf markets. Over-18s only.

Each way (EW) betting is extremely popular in golf because fields of 150 or more players make an outright win unlikely. An each way bet splits your stake between two bets: one on the player to win and one on the player to finish in the top number of places (typically top 5, 8, 10 or 20 in Majors). The place portion is paid at a fraction of the win odds, typically a quarter or a fifth. So even if your player does not win, a strong finish can still return a profit on the place portion.

Most bookmakers will void a bet if a player withdraws before they have teed off in the tournament. If a player starts the event and then withdraws through injury during a round, bets generally stand and the player is deemed to have finished in last place. Always check the specific terms of your chosen sportsbook before placing outright bets on golf events.

Each hole has a par target. A birdie is scoring one under par on a hole (for example, scoring 3 on a par 4). An eagle is two under par on a hole (scoring 2 on a par 4, or 3 on a par 5). A double eagle (albatross) is three under par and extremely rare. A bogey is one over par. A double bogey is two over par. A par means you matched the target score for the hole exactly.