Darren Fichardt has played in theR3-million Dimension Data Pro-Am since its 1996 inception, and he is looking forward to seeing if he can become a two-time winner in the event when it moves to its new home at Fancourt from February 11-14.

Fichardt held off two-time winner Nick Price and Ulrich van den Berg in 2004 for a two-stroke victory with his 10-under 278 on the Sun City courses at the Lost City and Gary Player Country Club, and, while he harbours a little nostalgia for those layouts, he is excited at the prospect of playing on the three Fancourt tracks.

“I have a good record at Fancourt,” he pointed out. “The courses there seem to suit my eye, so I am curious to see how things go with the three courses.”

The 156 professionals, each paired with an amateur will play a round on each of the Montagu, Outeniqua and The Links courses, after which there will be a cut to the top 65 professionals and ties for the final round which will be played on the Montagu course.

In addition, the top 25 pro-am teams, who will be playing a betterball medal format, will go through to the final round. The revamped Dimension Data Pro-Am is modelled on the Dunhill Links Championship, played with a similar format over three great links courses in Scotland.

The Links at Fancourt will pose a unique challenge for golfers in this event, because the other courses are parkland layouts.

“I like The Links,” said Fichardt, “and it showed when I finished third when the South African Open was played there in 2006.”

In a tournament over three courses, getting practice rounds in becomes a major issue, and Fichardt is approaching it with caution: “I’m going to have a practice round on The Links with Louis Oosthuizen on Wednesday, and that will be it,” he said.

“When I play the Dunhill Links, I just practice on St Andrews, because you can wear yourself out before the tournament if you try and get in three rounds ahead of it,” he added.

While Fichardt hasn’t had a flying start to the 2010 Sunshine Tour with a missed cut in the Africa Open and a share of 30th in the Joburg Open, he has made up for that by qualifying for The Open Championship in the International Final Qualifier-Africa which was held in the week after the Joburg Open.

“The game’s good,” he said. “I just battled with the greens in the Africa Open.”

Opening rounds of 67 and 68 in the Joburg Open put him in contention, but no-one was able to stop a flying Charl Schwartzel from winning by six strokes.

Last year, Fichardt won three times on the Sunshine Tour and finished third on the Order of Merit behind Anders Hansen and Schwartzel.

A big slice of the purse in the Dimension Data Pro-Am will kick-start his 2010 campaign and lift him from his 33rd spot on the current Order of Merit.