The Sunshine Boys is a 1975 American comedy movie about an ageing comedy duo Lewis and Clark, brought together for one final revival of their legendary act 11 years after an acrimonious split.
Liam Grehan and Rowan Lester are both in their 20s, they remain close friends, and they’re both hoping that their Sunshine Tour excursion will be the launch pad for their careers rather than the final act.
This will come as no surprise to anybody with a basic grasp of geography, but South Africa is big – 27 times the size of Ireland, more or less. And golf is huge there, so it’s also no surprise that the Sunshine Tour is a pretty big deal. And that’s precisely why they chose to try their luck in the Southern Hemisphere as opposed to staying to grind it out on the Clutch Pro Tour or the other mini tours around Europe.
“Over the last few years, I wanted to make it [tournament golf] much more of a full-time thing,” explains Grehan, who earned Category 9 status for 2025 at Sunshine Tour Q-School back in early April.
“And you want to be able to make a living too because it’s just much more expensive playing on the likes of the Clutch Pro.
“And there are better opportunities money-wise, and to play DP World Tour or HotelPlanner Tour events through the Sunshine Tour. Basically, just feel more like a genuine professional because they are four-round events, you have a caddie, and they are set up like a main tour event should be.
“Food – it’s almost cheaper to eat out than it is to cook – accommodation, entry fee, you actually have a chance to make money whereas you’re almost always spending more than you make back home.”
Lester had to fight a little harder than Grehan to earn his stripes, entering Q-School at First Stage, but he not only made it through, he finished third overall at Final Stage, meaning that though he’s also classed as Category 9, he started nine places higher than his compatriot on the exemption list.
Unsurprisingly, he too stresses the financial aspect of the decision because professionals, by the very nature of the word, have to grind out a living. And if you want to be the part, you have to look, act and feel the part.
“On the Clutch Pro Tour, for example, the entry fee is around 20 times higher than it is here, yet we’re playing for double the money, sometimes triple,” he added.
“But you’re also getting amazing weather most of the time. I’ve always felt that I play my best golf in really good weather – okay, I’ve played well in pretty bad weather at times too – but if you’re trying to do this as a job and get to the next level, you need to be playing in better weather because that’s what it’s usually like on the main tours.
“Your warm-ups can be much more effective and productive, and you get Pro-V1s on the practice range too. In fact, Titleist give you two-dozen brand new balls for each event that you’re in, they have a loft and lie machine, a grip station, scoreboards every three holes, grandstands, TV towers, the caddies wear bibs with your name on, it’s extremely professional.”
The caddies aren’t just plucked from the local pool either. It’s a profession in itself and they travel from tour event to tour event, often looping for the same player for weeks on end if the partnership starts to bear fruit.
And as you might expect with such professionally run events, the standard is extremely high. One of the recent events that Grehan and Lester both played – the former having to play in the Pre-Qualifier because of his slightly lower status from Q-School – featured multiple DP World Tour winners, PGA Tour winners, and even – as rumour has it – a player who is first reserve for one of the LIV teams and pocketing $50,000 weekly on retainer.
Both players made the cut in that event, though Grehan, already with the additional exertion of the 18-hole Pre-Qualifier, was struggling with illness and hit the wall on the weekend. Still, the made cut has big implications going forward.
After the Zambia Open – the fourth full-field event on the 2025 schedule and one that precedes an eight-week layoff – there was a re-rank for those ranked 51st and lower on the exemption list and every penny – or every rand in this case – counts. Grehan was 40th with Lester in 95th on the list as it turned out.
But the lads are content to lug their suitcases around and share Airbnb accommodation, but plan to settle on a more concrete base upon return.
“It’ll be somewhere near Royal Johannesburg where we’ve joined,” Lester declares.
“It’s only about 20 minutes from the airport, very central for everything. It’s a nice part of the city too, lots of nice cars around, so it’s pretty safe too.”
The duo, of course, aren’t the first Irishmen to try their luck in the Rainbow Nation. Richie O’Donovan played on the circuit in both 2023 and 2024, and he’s been a welcome sounding board for the pair in their early weeks.
“Yeah, Richie’s been very good,” Lester explained. “We spoke to him a lot before coming down here last year and we’re still in touch often enough. He was great for letting us know which caddies to go for and which to avoid, giving us contacts to ask for invitations to the events that we aren’t in because they like to see international names on the leaderboard as it’s a good look.
“Other than Richie and Jeff Hopkins, there haven’t really been that many Irish that have played down here so, beyond that, we’re just sort of picking it up ourselves as we go.”
While the Sunshine Tour may be the road less travelled, the nomadic nature of the Irish race means that there are many others who have gone to far flung places, chasing the dream. And the Head Professional at the K Club, where Grehan was an assistant pro, is one such man.
“I had a good chat with Gary Murphy about when he started out playing on the Asian Tour,” Grehan divulges.
“He also put us in touch with a couple of people, and he had some great advice about navigating your way down here because of his experience on the European Tour.
“I was just picking his brain about anything I could, really, and he’s always great in that sense in fairness. But at the same time, we’re both fairly well travelled, we’ve played on tour in England a lot, so a lot of it is applying what we’ve learned there and transferring it here.”
Now comes the awkward question. What if, like Hollywood’s Sunshine Boys, Lewis and Clark, their creative differences start to create problems? What if the novelty factor of living in each other’s pocket for an extended period of time starts to wear off?
“Well, we haven’t fallen out yet, so that’s a plus,” Lester jokes.
“We’ve got a few South Africans who we get on well with – David Meyers and Dylan O’Leary – so we spend a fair bit of time with them too, but you need that bit of Irish banter, that Irish sense of humour as well. It goes a long way when you’re killing time between rounds and travelling and that.
“But I think most of us golfers are very similar, and all the Irish lads seem to get on fairly well so that’s always made it that much easier.
“But you need to be on a similar wavelength when it comes to practise, and luckily, we both like long days and practising hard, because you don’t want to have to be dragging the other one to the course when you’re sharing a car.”
One way in which they might start to get under each other’s skin is if they find themselves squaring off in a playoff, but that’s a first world problem and one they’ll happily digest should the situation arise.
“There is one thing,” Lester cuts in, “he likes to make an early call on a putt. He’ll say ‘good putt’, or ‘oh, nice’ when it’s a foot out and then it misses. He’s done it a few times in a money match and I’m nearly eating his head off. I said if you do that to me when we’re playing a tournament, I’ll go mad!”
“I know how to get under his skin,” Grehan responds. “So, if there is a playoff, I know exactly what to do!”
Maybe they’re more like Hollywood’s Sunshine Boys than first thought.
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