There’s a touch of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong about the PGA Tour’s long-hitting sensation of 2025, Aldrich Potgieter, and it regards the pronunciation of his name.
You like Pot-gaiter, I like Pot-heater,
You like Pot-geeter, I like Pot-jeeter.
The curiosity of all these complications is that they appear at such odds with the apparent simplicity of the golf he produces.
Because Potgieter is an example of the young golfer every college coach seeks in that he has sensational clubhead speed and hits the ball prodigious distances.
In his first season among the world’s elite golfers the 20-year-old South African ranks second for clubhead speed (125.77 mph) and first for driving distance (327.6 yards). He has not wasted his raw material either, because he ranks second for strokes gained off the tee (+0.686).
For traditionalists it is tempting to conclude that the youngster with the bewilderingly complex Afrikaans name has a distinctly one-dimensional game, and it has to be said that he is undoubtedly hot and cold in terms of results with his 17 starts in 2025 having reaped four top-15 finishes and 11 failures to make the weekend.
Moreover, three of those four good efforts have come at venues well suited to golfers blessed with power from the tee.
He was third heading into the final round at Torrey Pines in January’s Farmers Insurance Open before finishing T15 and then finished second in February’s Mexico Open at VidantaWorld, losing in a playoff to Brian Campbell after leading through 54 holes.
Last month he confirmed his transformation from intriguing talent to first-time winner with playoff triumph in the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club.
So far, so simple, and yet there’s more to this story than meets the eye, beginning with a childhood defined by migration.
Born on the high veldt in Pretoria, his family first moved to Mossel Bay on the Garden Route between Cape Town and Durban. It was there that he was introduced to golf and joined Louis Oosthuizen’s junior golf academy.
When he was 8, his family crossed the Indian Ocean to Perth, Western Australia, where Potgieter enrolled in the golf program at Kingsway Christian College.
“Emigrating was hard once and hard a second time. We sacrificed a lot. But you get used to change and I have learned about being away from home.” – Aldrich Potgieter
Many cricket and rugby players from South Africa have fled overseas in recent decades, often to represent other nations, but the Potgieters returned to South Africa when their son was 17 because Australian COVID-19 policies threatened to limit his opportunities in international competitions.
It was shortly after this return that he joined the national amateur squad on its annual visit to Britain’s elite linksland championships.
He told GGP then of his many moves: “Emigrating was hard once and hard a second time. We sacrificed a lot. But you get used to change and I have learned about being away from home.”
So Potgieter might be young, but he is also unusually well traveled and unafraid of being outside his comfort zone.
He also proved during the final week of that 2022 summer tour, among the dunes at Royal Lytham & St Annes in the Amateur Championship, that he is a fast learner.
Team-mates talked of how he had started the trip with missed cuts in both the Scottish Amateur Championship (at Cruden Bay) and the St Andrews Links Trophy.
They gasped when they added that even earlier that week he was bewildered by the challenges of British seaside golf.
The management, meanwhile, talked of a wise head on young shoulders.
Royal Lytham is famed for its difficulty from the tee. It demands accuracy, a smart game plan to avoid the many pot bunkers, and the ability to withstand capricious winds. As with all links golf, the short game needs more options than a lob shot.
Potgieter overcame these challenges in a victory that mocked those early failures north of the border and then revealed what had prompted the rapid transformation.
“I knew I had plenty to learn,” he told GGP. “The whole Golf South Africa team helped me and, in particular, Roger Wessels (the former Sunshine Tour professional) who explained how to use the ground. Things like drilling a low 2-iron from the tee and using a 5-iron round the green instead of a 56-degree wedge.”
These were not the words – or deeds – of a one-dimensional big hitter (there’s no arguing with that raw power, however, and he explained that “a lot of wrestling and rugby” had forged his solid base).
His capacity to rebound has been in evidence again this year because the near-miss at the Farmers Insurance Open was not his first on a major tour. Before last Christmas he had led the DP World Tour’s Nedbank Challenge in his native land by three strokes heading into the final round before finishing second.
Another spurned 54-hole advantage in the Mexico Open would have panicked many a 20-year-old but Potgieter took it on the chin.
“Pressure’s a big thing,” he said. “You can’t really beat it, you just have to learn and adjust to it next time you’re in that position.”
He was as good as his word in the Detroit victory and, in retrospect, there was another reason he performed well there: it was the only course he’s played this season of which he had prior knowledge.
Having been invited to play the tournament in 2022 he explained after his first round: “I don’t have to rush around playing as many holes as I can.” And added: “I didn’t make the cut, so there was definitely a chip on my shoulder that I needed to get that done this week.”
He did better than that. Much better.
“He’s the perfect guy coming through right now in South Africa. He’s got a great head on him, so mature. He hits it such a long way and hits it really straight as well. He’s a huge talent. I think he’s going to be very, very good.” – Louis Oosthuizen
At 20 years, 9 months and 16 days of age he was the seventh-youngest winner on the PGA Tour since 1983 and joined an elite list of international-born players who have won on the tour before their 21st birthday (alongside Seve Ballesteros, Rory McIlroy, Joaquin Niemann and Tom Kim).
South African golf experienced a golden period between 1994 and 2012 with sustained major championship success for Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and one-off triumphs for Trevor Immelman, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel.
The country continues to produce many fine golfers but it lacks a standout star. Might Potgieter fill the gap?
After playing with him at the 2023 Masters, Oosthuizen said: “He’s the perfect guy coming through right now in South Africa. He’s got a great head on him, so mature. He hits it such a long way and hits it really straight as well. He’s a huge talent. I think he’s going to be very, very good.”
And those pronunciation muddles?
The PGA Tour official suggestion is: ALL-drick POT-gee-tur.
In that regard, at least, let’s call the whole thing off.