Schwartzel back in Masters contention: ‘Best ball-striking in long time’

He might have missed six straight cuts coming in to the Masters this week, but 2011 champion Charl Schwartzel saw his second round of three-under-par 69 coming as he roared into contention ahead of the weekend at Augusta National Golf Club.

It was a day on which only world number one Scottie Scheffler, former Open champion Shane Lowry and Justin Thomas looked as if they had any chance of going low as a strong wind wreaked havoc with the scorecards of a number of hopefuls. But Schwartzel drew on memories of his triumph over 10 years ago and looked every part a potential champion once again.

“The bad results didn’t really determine how I felt coming in here,” said Schwartzel. “I actually took two weeks off, and as the two weeks went by, my confidence grew in belief that I could win this tournament because I was starting to hit it very good.

“I just looked at the old footage, and it’s still there. I looked at how I won the Masters, and I worked on the swing, and I just tried to erase all the last couple of weeks, the results.”

Cold, but little wind

An early start helped Schwartzel. “I think we had a little fortune this morning,” he said. “It was very cold, but we didn’t deal with a lot of wind for the first five or six holes.

“It started picking up around seven, eight, and then the back nine it got hard. Down the bottom there around Amen Corner, the wind swirls a lot. You know that it’s there. It’s just trying to commit to a shot that was the hardest thing.”

And when you are a player who has battled injury for years, as well as an almost crippling tendency to over-analyse and seek answers for the slightest of flaws, real and imagined, a score like his 69 is very sweet.

“I’ve been working on things the whole season,” Schwartzel said. “I haven’t felt like I’ve played as badly as my results, though. I tried to tighten the swing up a little bit. Get the hands a little more passive. Hands were a little too active. I must be honest; these two rounds are the two best ball-striking rounds I’ve had in a very long time.”

He’s in a share of second heading into the weekend. Scheffler looked every inch the world number one as he stretched imperiously to lead by five at eight-under for the tournament after a superb five-under 67. With Schwartzel on three-under is defending champion Hideki Matsuyama, first-round leader Sungjae Im of South Korea, and Lowry who shot a 68.

One shot back on two-under are 2020 champion Dustin Johnson, Australian Cameron Smit and Americans Harold Varner III and Kevin Na.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout made the cut after a second-round one-under 71 had him level-par for the tournament in a share of 16^th.

Missing out were Erik van Rooyen after a seven-over 79 and Garrick Higgo who shot an 11-over 83. Louis Oousthuizen withdrew after the first round with an unspecified injury.

For Schwartzel, the weekend will be about remembering 2011. “For me, the part that struck me most when I watched the footage of winning the Masters was putting on the green jacket at the end,” he laughed.

Courtesy satourgolf.co.za