South African Charl Schwartzel made it three wins in his past six events this season and in the process capturing a first regular PGA Tour title with a play-off victory in the Valspar Championship at Palm Harbor.
The 31-year old, whose only other victory in the U.S. was in capturing the 2011 Masters, posted the best round of the day of a four under par 67 to join American Bill Haas on seven under par.
The duo headed to the first extra play-off but with Haas, who held the 54-hole lead for a seventh time in his career, unlucky to miss the green and find a bunker with his approach shot.
Charl Schwartzel plants a kiss on the unique Valspar Championship paint brush trophy
However Haas played a poor third shot well past the flag and leaving Schwartzel to collect a 15th pro career win with a regulation two-putt par.
And after having captured the Tshawne Open on February 14th the Spingbok golfer believes it helped his confidence heading into the play-off.
“I feed a lot off my wins,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter where I win in the world. I always say it takes the same amount of effort anywhere you win in the world. It always comes down to those last few holes and the special putts and special shots and if you can deal with it you can deal with anything. It’s what you make of it. Just a little bit harder for me because of not winning out here again but I just kept saying you did it a couple weeks ago, you can do it again.”
Charl Schwartzel admits he’s surprised to have waited nearly 5 years to win for only a second time in the States.
And I asked Schwartzel if he was surprised that his Valspar win was only a second on the PGA Tour and all but five years since winning the Masters.
“It does surprise me,” he said.
“But, you know, you get in the way of yourself or maybe year and a half after the Masters when I felt like I played well, I had a few chances here and there but after that I started getting in the way of myself and my golf swing went a little bit bad. It was a snowball in the wrong direction.
“Then it took sometime to fix up again and it’s been a couple years before South Africa. I new from playing South Africa with those two wins that I had that I was playing — I was going to play as good as I played before and I knew if I come out here with a good mindset that I will give myself some chances to win and didn’t expect it to be that hard.”
Well done, Charl.
