Charl can’t bottle up emotions
NEW DELHI: South African golfer Charl Schwartzel regrets breaking a club after hitting a poor shot at the British Open last month but the 2011 US Masters champion said playing with pent-up frustration had a more negative effect on his overall performance.
“It is very difficult at times,” the 28-year-old said when asked how he handled on-course irritation.
“Some people can keep it in. Others need to sort of express it in a way. I need to actually get it out to carry on,” the golfer told a teleconference, in which he confirmed he would be defending his Thailand Golf Championship crown in December.
“I can’t keep it bottled up inside me. That will affect my game more than actually expressing my whatever, a bad shot I hit or whatever it may be.”
Muirfield witnessed a manifestation of his anger when the South African snapped an eight-iron in half, after a duffed approach shot from the deep rough led Schwartzel to hurl his club into the ground in front of him.
“Obviously not very proud of it,” the golfer added. “It was just in the moment, all the tensions that was going on. It wasn’t actually even that bad a shot.
“I wasn’t planning on breaking the club. The ground was just so firm that obviously it fell at an angle and broke. I’m not very proud of it, but at least the next day, I came back and played some good golf,” he said of his top-15 finish.
The South African won the Asian Tour title in Thailand last year with a 11-stroke victory after posting just one bogey in the whole week.
“I’ve always tried to be very consistent with the game ... by managing to only make one bogey in 72 holes around a golf course like Amata Spring, that was a really, really big achievement for me.” – Reuters