Schwartzel-Els pairing makes for friendly competition
The highly hospitable offer was made before Sunday’s final round, mind you, so the innkeeper might change her mind, depending on how things play out.
Ernie Els has played the role of mentor to young Charl Schwartzel. (Getty Images) All last week, rising European Tour star Charl Schwartzel stayed at the abode of countryman Ernie Els, located just up the interstate in Jupiter, using the time to hone his game before this week’s big-money CA Championship at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa.
The plan is for Schwartzel and his fiancee, Rosalyn, to crash next week at the Els domicile, too, before they both play in the Arnold Palmer Invitational the following week in Orlando.
“As long as he keeps making us biscuits for breakfast,” Liezl Els said Saturday, “he can stay.”
Although if Schwartzel knocks off her husband in Sunday’s final round, that general notion might go down as well as burned eggs and a cold cup of coffee. The familiar, friendly duo will be paired in the final round with $1.4 million on the line, pitting not only the homeowner and the houseguest, but master and apprentice.
Seeking only his second PGA Tour victory since 2004, Els shot 70 on Saturday and shares the lead at 12-under with Schwartzel, the wiry fellow South African who occasionally played in Els’ junior golf foundation events as a kid.
The good news is that Schwartzel can clearly afford a hotel if Els kicks him out.
“We’ll have to see how it goes tomorrow,” Els said. “He might be sleeping in the garden.”
He’s earned his keep so far. Schwartzel, a five-time winner on the E-Tour, last week baked the Els family some tasty biscotti-style treats to dunk in their coffee at breakfast. As for background, Els has known the Schwartzel family since Charl was barely old enough to hoist a mug to his own lips.
In fact, Charl’s dad, George, teamed with Els to win a better-ball tournament in South Africa in 1987, when Schwartzel was all of 2.
“He was, like, my hero,” Schwartzel said.
The familiarity hardly ends there, either. They share the same manager and Els’ longtime caddie, Ricci Roberts, spent the 2007 sea with whom Roberts has logged were taking a break.
“As I have said to everybody, he is the full package,” Roberts said of Schwartzel. “Now it’s time for him to move to the next stage.” Schwartzel seems ready to crash the next threshold, to be sure. He won the first two European Tour events of 2010 at the African and Joburg opens and was ninth at the star-laden Accenture Match Play Championship last month. At No. 35 in the world ranking at age 25, this week already marks the fourth time he has played in this particular WGC event, though he has never finished in the top 15. He has never finished better than T22 in a major championship, where he has missed seven of 12 cuts.
That’s largely why his manager, Chubby Chandler, gave him a pep talk before this week.
“This is your progression,” Chandler said, his way of telling Schwartzel it was time to ramp it up in the bigger events. “For a player as good as him, that [record in majors] is not right.”
Talk about a quandary. Chandler, Els’ agent for several years, had a feeling that Schwartzel was ready to make some noise and placed a wager overseas to that effect before the week. He got 80-to-1 odds on an “each-way” wager on Schwartzel, which means he’s in for a tidy payday as long as Charl finishes in the top five. Chandler wouldn’t say how much he put down, exactly.
“Quite a bit,” he said.
When a man who is accurately nicknamed Chubby has a gut instinct, it’s best to go with the flow.
“I definitely sensed that he was somebody different [this week],” Chandler said.
Some of that is attributable to the hospitality of Els. Schwartzel used his week in Jupiter to twice play the famed Seminole Golf Club, and he practiced at the prestigious Bear’s Club, the home-course hangout of none other than Jack Nicklaus. Early in the week, Schwartzel, who doesn’t have any status on the U.S. tour, tried to Monday-qualify for the Honda Classic, but didn’t make it. He spent nine days at the Els abode before they both set up shop at the Doral Resort this week.
Els compared Schwartzel’s career path to that of countryman Trevor Immelman, a former Masters winner and another player who fashioned his career after that of Els, a three-time major winner who has known both of them since they were mere pups.
“But he’s even more impressive because he’s longer, he hits the ball a really long way,” Els said this week of Schwartzel. “He’s just got so much talent. When he gets a break out here, you’re going to see the next superstar out of South Africa, basically.”
Maybe for Schwartzel, thanks to proximity alone, the star power will rub off.
