Charl Schwartzel has won the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit for the last three seasons. And at the end of April he captured his first European Tour title in Europe the Spanish Open.
At that stage the sky looked to be the limit for the young South African. Here, surely, was this country's next Major champion in the making. He was dubbed the best young player in the world.
Yet golf can be a strange and frustrating game and, for all his talent, Schwartzel has struggled mightily since then missing putts and missing cuts.
The 23-year-old's one-under-par 71 on Thursday in the first round of the South African Open at Pearl Valley, then, was like turning the corner after a dismal six months.
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It left him in joint second place, one off Englishman Robert Rock following a difficult day for the players on a wild, windswept day which turned this long, new course into a monster.
"Serious, today 71 felt like a 65 because it was blowing so hard," said the slightly-built 63kg Maccauvlei professional whose only bad hole was the 17th where he took a double-bogey six.
"It was very difficult out there, especially for scrawny guys like me," said Schwartzel who was one of only four players to break par on Friday.
Rock shot 70, Schwartzel and South Africans Ulrich van den Berg and Alex Haindl 71, while Northern Ireland's Darren Clarke was one of seven players to post even-par 72s.
Everyone else was over par, including Retief Goosen on 74, Tim Clark and Greg Norman on 75, Ernie Els on 77 and US Open champion Angel Cabrera on an unwelcome 80 although so poor have the scores been that a 74 or so from him might be enough to make the cut.
Els blew his chances of winning last week's Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek when he made a triple-bogey eight at the 72nd hole, handing victory to England's John Bickerton.
And Els was feeling decidedly uneasy again yesterday when he hit what he thought was a drive headed for out-of-bounds at the 17th hole (his eighth of the day as he started at No 10).
Assuming he was "OB", he reloaded (playing three) without declaring that he was hitting a provisional, which the rules demand that you do. Then he discovered the first tee-shot was actually in bounds.
"But because he didn't say he was hitting a provisional, he deemed under the rules that the first ball was lost. So the second ball was the one in play," said rules official Theo Manyama.
Els therefore made a six (a par with his second ball). It was his second straight double-bogey on his way to 77.
The weird thing is, he isn't out of it. The cut could be as high as 152 or 1 54.
If Els, chasing his fifth SA Open title, can produce a sub-par round on Friday, he may not be too far off the leaderboard through 36 holes.
- This article was originally published on page 24 of Cape Argus on December 14, 2007
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