There are easier ways to acquire a new address than carrying somebody else’s golf bag around the world. Dean Smith took the scenic route.

His relationship with the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open began alongside Ryan Fox in 2016; a decade later, their partnership has produced an Open champion, while Smith has gone rather further than merely recommending Mauritius to friends. He lives there.

That gives this year’s tenth edition of the tournament a rather better story than another anniversary cake and a photograph of people holding a cheque.

A partnership that started near the beginning

Smith and Fox were together at the 2016 AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open during the early stages of a partnership that would eventually see Fox rise to 24th in the world.

Mauritius, meanwhile, was beginning to exert its own influence.

“The 2016 AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open was actually right at the beginning of my and Ryan’s relationship. It was Ryan’s first trip there, and it was also part of the reason why my wife and I fell in love with Mauritius.

Then we moved to Mauritius in 2023. That was the year Louis Oosthuizen won and I was there to witness that, which was special,” says Smith.

Golfers are accustomed to remembering places by shots, scores and the occasional hotel breakfast they would prefer to forget. For Smith, Mauritius became something more permanent.

His move in 2023 also coincided with one of the tournament’s more notable victories, as Major champion Louis Oosthuizen won the title.

Dean Smith has watched Mauritius golf grow

Living on the island gives Smith a perspective that visiting professionals rarely have. He has seen not merely the resort courses familiar to travelling golfers, but the activity underneath them.

His most telling observation concerns the practice ground.

“Golf in Mauritius is going from strength to strength. It’s big. The junior golf is growing and when I’m there and I play golf with my friends, you see the practice range filled with junior golfers.

The weather is fantastic in Mauritius, which helps the golf. Then you are spoilt for great golf courses there. You have a great mix of friendly resort-style golf courses all the way up to championship courses.”

The juniors matter.

Championship tournaments can make a destination look good for television. A practice range busy with children suggests something rather more substantial may be happening after the cameras have gone home.

Mauritius also has the obvious advantage of climate, while Smith points to a range of courses extending from accessible resort golf to championship layouts. That breadth matters if the island wants golf to be more than an occasional showcase for visiting professionals.

The AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open reaches its tenth edition

The tournament has become part of that wider golf identity.

Co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour and Sunshine Tour, the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open reaches its tenth edition this year with a purse of US$1.5 million.

Smith believes the calibre of winners and competitors has helped establish its standing.

“Louis Oosthuizen has won the tournament. He’s a Major champion. Jayden Schaper has won there and is going from strength to strength, and he will be on the PGA TOUR next year. You get a fantastic quality of players from around the world competing in the event.”

That mixture is important. A tournament gains credibility partly through who turns up, but considerably more through who leaves holding the trophy.

Oosthuizen supplies the Major pedigree. Defending champion Jayden Schaper provides the more contemporary strand, while former champion Antoine Rozner is also scheduled to return.

Mont Choisy Le Golf gets the 2026 stage

This year’s event will be played at Mont Choisy Le Golf from 10–13 December.

Schaper is already included in the field alongside rising South African Casey Jarvis, who finished inside the top 10 at The Open at Royal Birkdale this year. Multiple DP World Tour winner Dean Burmester and Rozner are also named among the early entries.

For an event celebrating its tenth edition, that gives organisers a useful combination: established winners, returning champions and players still moving briskly in the other direction.

Air Mauritius continues as the tournament’s official airline partner, forming part of the broader effort to link international golf with the island’s tourism and hospitality offering.

There is an obvious commercial logic to that arrangement. Golf tournaments move people as well as leaderboards, and an island destination has rather more interest than most in persuading spectators and golfers to make the journey.

More than another stop on the calendar

The AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open can point to Major champions, Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup players and a decade of tournament history. Smith’s connection offers something harder to manufacture.

He arrived with Fox near the beginning of their professional relationship. He watched Oosthuizen win years later. Somewhere between the golf courses, the climate and repeated visits, Mauritius stopped being another stamp in the passport.

Smith eventually stayed.

For a tournament trying to demonstrate its influence beyond four days of competition, there are worse endorsements than a Major-winning caddie deciding the destination is good enough to call home.

Most tournaments send the caddie away with a yardage book. Mauritius kept this one.