As has become customary, the new DP World Tour season begins just hours after the last one ended, this time with a stunning victory from PGA Tour-bound Nicolai Hojgaard as Rory McIlroy took home a fifth Race to Dubai.

There is a strong argument that some kind of break would be to everyone's benefit, but we're largely dealing with players who can't be too fussy. This co-sanctioned event, running alongside the Australian PGA, is a career-changing opportunity for so many – just ask Dan Bradbury, who won the title playing on an invite last year.

Key to solving it is to establish which, if any, of the class acts from South Africa will step up on what they've been doing lately. It will be needed, even at this level, after a disappointing campaign for Charl Schwartzel, and a tame return to the DP World Tour for both Branden Grace and Dean Burmester of late.

This trio make up a LIV Golf team that was thumped in the latter stages of their team championship finale and it's quite difficult to get a handle on them.

Once upon a time Schwartzel would've been a very skinny price for this, his hometown event and one he's won twice; Burmester meanwhile seldom plays poorly at home, and Grace hasn't forgotten how to win when a chance comes along. Victory for any one of them, awkward though it may be, certainly couldn't be called a surprise.

That said I found it quite difficult to drum up enthusiasm for any of them bar perhaps Schwartzel, who at 40/1 demands a second look on class grounds. He's about one-in-10 in terms of strike-rate on home soil over a 20-year period and ninth place in last year's SA Open, when selected on these pages at 28/1, is a decent form line.

Still, he laboured to 38th on LIV's individual standings, a poor effort however you dress it, and after some time off might be happy to sharpen up for next week's event, held at a course where he used to live and the one big South African title he's still to win.

I'd rather get a look at Schwartzel's game before suggesting we give the former Masters champion the benefit of considerable doubt and wouldn't mind taking shorter odds following a promising performance here, in the right circumstances of course.

That's for next week but here in Joburg, the man to beat is CHRISTIAAN BEZUIDENHOUT, who for my money ought to be favourite and can land one for fans of the nappy factor, having recently become a dad.

Third here last year, that was Bezuidenhout's first look at Houghton and puts him at an advantage over the other three, and having won three times in his last eight starts on South African soil, he deserves a little more respect.

Bezuidenhout's price is explained by the fact he's endured a bit of a down year, but he still comfortably kept his PGA Tour card, and sixth place at the Sanderson Farms is one of the strongest pieces of recent form on offer.

As you might expect, it came courtesy of quality approach play (seventh) and a killer short-game, Bezuidenhout's weakness being the driver, and while not so good at the Shriners thereafter he did close with an excellent 65 in which he made eight birdies and one bad mistake off the tee.