He’s been to the Masters before, and, in this his third visit to the hallowed grounds at Augusta National Golf Club, Christiaan Bezuidenhout is perhaps ready to shine on a course and in a championship to which his game and demeanour seem eminently suited.
He tees off on Thursday at 5.40pm South African time with two-time Masters champion Bernhard Langer, who won in 1985 and 1993, and with Australian Cameron Davis, who is making his debut in the Masters. With a share of 38th in 2020 and of 40th in 2021, Bezuidenhout probably feels he’s ready to show just how good he is under a spotlight which is brighter than any other in world golf.
Bezuidenhout, the world number 61 – he’s been as low at 33rd in the world soon after winning the 2020 South African Open Championship – has had a quiet year by his standards. There are just three top-20s to his name, with a best of a share of 14th in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February. His best recent result was the share of 20th he had in the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Despite all that, if there is one thing you can be sure of, it’s that Bezuidenhout has been hard at work with a specific goal in mind – and that’s to finish as best he can this week.
He’s not the highest-ranked South African in the field, of course: perennial major championship bridesmaid Louis Oosthuizen, ranked 15th in the world, holds that honour, and he’s drawn to play with Tiger Woods in the opening two rounds. Those will easily be the most watched rounds of golf, possibly in the history of the game. But Oosthuizen will be his normal unflappable self, and it won’t be too much of a surprise if he is in contention once more over the weekend. He has the scar-tissue of the play-off loss to Bubba Watson in 2012 to deal with, but he has come so close to winning at all the majors since, that is probably only a factor in the minds of the pundits.
Erik van Rooyen is one of two South Africans making a debut at Augusta. The other is Garrick Higgo. If the Bezuidenhout lesson is applicable, then it might be a while before either of them feels at ease enough to challenge this week. Van Rooyen has showed more form recently than Higgo, and, given his combative nature, it won’t be surprising to see him fare well. Higgo has been poor lately, but just being at the Masters can lift him to the kinds of levels which made him so successful last year and earned him his invitation.
The fifth South African in the field is 2011 champion Charl Schwartzel. On the face of it, it would seem unlikely that he could repeat that golden performance when he birdied the last four holes to race to the green jacket. But a glance at the video of the final round that year shows enough of how good he can be. There have been glimpses of form on the PGA Tour this year, and he is quite capable of stringing together a week’s worth of that kind of play.
But there’s something about Bezuidenhout that seems imminently matched to all we know about Augusta and the Masters. Keep a close eye on him.
