Fuente: © Southern Africa Tour
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GOLF: SOUTHERN AFRICA TOUR: International preview – Week 18

/noticias.info/ Charl Schwartzel launches his title defence at the Open de Espana, Trevor Immelman leads the local challenge at the Wachovia Championship and Sunshine Tour number two Garth Mulroy looks for success at the South Georgia Classic.

EUROPEAN TOUR
Defending champion Charl Schwartzel has enjoyed many of his better performances in Spain and Portugal; in fact, four of his last five trips to Iberia have yielded top-10 finishes.

With the feel-good factor sweeping through South African golf since Trevor Immelman donned the Green Jacket at the Masters three weeks ago, the clever money is on Schwartzel, who heads to the Real Club de Golf de Sevilla for the Open de Espana on the back of three top-10s this season.

In a turnaround of events, the 23-year old South African moved into contention on the last day at the Centro Nacional de Golf on the outskirts of Madrid.

He set up a 15-foot eagle putt at the 16th with a spectacular three-iron shot he blasted more than 230 yards into the wind and rounded off the formalities with solid play for a five-under-par 67 to beat Jyoti Randhawa by a stroke for his second European Tour victory.

The talented young gun from Maccauvlei, who broke into the winner’s circle at the 2005 Alfred Dunhill Championship, moved into the world top-50 with this win, but adjusting to new equipment since December saw him slip a little in status.

After a tie for 14th at the Joburg Open, Schwartzel started the long climb back and, after a third place finish at the Qatar Masters, he added ties for sixth and seventh at the Malaysian Open and Open de Portugal respectively to show he is back to impressive form.

If the recently qualified pilot can slip into the winner’s circle on Sunday, he will become the first player since Max Faulkner (1952 and 1953) to successfully defend the title of one of the oldest continental Opens, first played in 1912.

Schwartzel defends his title against a field that includes home favourite Miguel Angel Jiménez, eight-time Order of Merit winner Colin Montgomerie; Frenchman Thomas Levet, who has his eyes set on a Spanish double, and the irrepressible American John Daly, winner of two Major Championships.

Andrew McLardy, Alan McLean, Hennie Otto, Doug McGuigan, Anton Haig and European Tour rookies Thomas Aiken, Ulrich van den Berg and James Kamte complete the South African line-up.

PGA TOUR
A win. Runner-up. Tied for 10th. Tied for 7th. Those are Vijay Singh’s finishes since the started back in 2003. Pretty impressive. And he is due for a victory after finishing inside the top five in four of his past six tries in 2008.

Solid play at Hilton Head Island with a tie for fourth at the Verizon Heritage. A former U.S. Open champion who plays tough golf courses well. Although Jim Firyk has three top-five finishes this year, it won't be a good year by his standards without a win.

His clutch finish at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship might prove to be an initiator to bigger things in the Adam Scott’s career. He has been playing well since Houston, got derailed by illness, but he is fit now and his game is healthy, too.

Those are this week's top-three picks from the PGA Tour’s top-three golf correspondents.

We say look for Trevor Immelman to dominate again at Quail Hollow. The 2008 Masters champion heads the local challenge at this week’s $6,4-million event and he wouldn’t have taken kindly to missing the cut by a land mile at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship last week.

He knows he has to get back on the horse quickly and with a second in 2006 and a tie for 14th last year, Quail Hollow and its positive memories could be just what the doctor ordered to put Immelman back on track for the US Open in June.

Tim Clark and Rory Sabbatini, also victims of the cut at the TPC Las Colinas, round out the South African challenge.

Sabbatini missed cuts and finished near the lower echelons of the leaderboard in the early years of the event, but managed an impressive tie for third last year. While Clark gave Quail Hollow a miss in 2007, his best finish was a tie for 14th in 2006.

CHALLENGE TOUR
Former Telkom PGA champion Michiel Bothma is the lone South African teeing it up at this week’s Moroccan Classic at the El Jadida Sofitel Golf Resort.

Bothma has just this week to improve his ranking of 59th from two starts before he heads home for the Sunshine Tour’s Samsung Royal Swazi Sun Open and the impending birth of his first child.

With earnings of only €3,879, Bothma is more than €30,000 short of Estanislao Goya of Argentina who, despite falling out of contention last, still leads the Challenge Tour Rankings and a potential star in the making.

The exciting teenager’s victory at last month’s Abierto VISA del Centro in his native Argentina saw him become a category one member of the Challenge Tour and he is keen to follow in the footsteps of his idols Angel Cabrera and Andres Romero.

NATIONWIDE TOUR
Tjaart van der Walt and Brendon de Jonge will hope to turn things around after disappointing finishes at the weekend in this week’s South Georgia Classic.

Both players started with strong opening rounds, but a 75 in the final round saw the Zimbabwean De Jonge slip to a tie for 26th while Van den Walt slumped to a share of 42nd at the Henrico County Open.

Garth Mulroy has missed the last two cuts and needs a strong performance at the Kinderlou Forest Club in Valdosta, Georgia to turn his season around. The Umkomaas professional, who is ranked second on the Sunshine Tour’s Order of Merit, needs to get into the top-25 early in the season to stand any chance of securing his PGA Tour card for 2009.

Cape Town’s Craig Lile, back on the Nationwide Tour after losing his PGA Tour card last year, rounds off the Southern African line-up. notas_de_prensa_archivo