Oosthuizen paired with Woods; other SA players with Masters greats

South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen, a runner-up at the Masters in 2012, will play alongside Tiger Woods in the first two rounds of this year’s tournament at Augusta National from Thursday.

Joining the duo will be Chile’s Joaquin Nieman.

Oosthuizen, who finished second at last year’s US Open and PGA Championship and third at the Open in Britain, has so far only picked up one Major title – the Open championship in 2010. At Augusta in 2012 he finished runner-up to Bubba Watson, who won in a playoff.

Woods will confirm on Wednesday after a nine-hole practice round whether he will tee it up on Thursday, just months after being involved in a car crash that almost claimed his life.

The multiple Major champion, who won at Augusta in 2019, will be seeking a sixth Green Jacket.

The 46-year-old Woods, Oosthuizen and Nieman will tee off at 4.34pm SA time on Thursday and 7.41pm SA time Friday.

South Africa’s other Masters participants this year are former champion from 2011 Charl Schwartzel, and rising stars Erik van Rooyen, Garrick Higgo and Christian Bezuidenhout.

Higgo, who won on the PGA Tour for the first time last year, will play alongside former champion and crowd pleaser Fred Couples and Italian Guido Migliozzi, Van Rooyen will be paired with Lucas Glover, a former US Open champion, and Cameron Champ, while Bezuidenhout will be with Cameron Davis and another former Masters champion, the evergreen Bernhard Langer.

Schwartzel will play alongside Scot Robert MacIntyre and rookie Laird Shepherd.

In other feature groupings, Rory McIlroy will play with Brooks Koepka and Matthew Fitzpatrick, Jordan Spieth, Viktor Hovland and Xander Schauffele will play together, while Jon Rahm, the favourite to bag the title this week, will be grouped with Patrick Cantlay and Willl Zalatoris.

For all the groupings click here.