Charl Schwartzel is one of three South Africans in action at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Bay Hill, Florida this week, writes ANDRE HUISAMEN.
Having successfully recovered from a wrist injury that kept him out of action for the majority of last season, Schwartzel looks to have finally found his groove again by consistently raking in decent finishes on the PGA Tour in recent weeks.
After a tough start to the year, where he missed the cut at the SA Open, the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship and the Phoenix Open, the 35-year-old managed a T5 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and only a final round slide saw him settle for T17 at last weekend’s Honda Classic.
He will be hoping to take that confidence into the start of play, which gets under way on Thursday at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge.
Another South African, who will be fairly buzzing with a bit of consistency, is Christiaan Bezuidenhout. The 25-year-old was agonisingly close to winning the Dubai Desert Classic in January but fell short in a playoff to Australian Lucas Herbert.
He would, however, grab an impressive victory on home soil by winning the Dimension Data Pro-Am at Fancourt, where in a composed final round he fought off a valiant charge by George Coetzee. Bezuidenhout, though, didn’t feature at last weekend’s Honda Classic and took a break following his T29 finish at the WGC-Mexico Championship, which will hopefully result in an even higher finish this weekend.
Dylan Frittelli will complete the South African contingent at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and he will definitely be eyeing a better finish than last week when he finished nine over par in T58 at the Honda Classic.
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As South Africa’s main competitor on the PGA Tour, it’s been a rough start to the year for Frittelli, though, who has been struggling to hit his straps on tour so far.
The 29-year-old missed two cuts so far this year and has failed to finish under par in any of the other competitions. An urgent improvement and more composed performance over the course of the four days will be top priority for Frittelli.
