JOHANNESBURG \u2013 After a six-week break, Charl Schwartzel is itching to return to competition at one of his favourite venues in this week\u2019s Joburg Open at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club.<\/p>\n
Schwartzel ended 2012 in spectacular fashion when he won the Thailand Golf Championship by 11 strokes and then the Alfred Dunhill Championship by 12 in successive weeks.<\/p>\n
He took the longest break of his professional career, and has returned hungry to add to his Joburg Open titles in 2010 and 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been one of the longest breaks I\u2019ve ever taken \u2013 six weeks. I did some practice and didn\u2019t miss that part of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I did miss the competitiveness of it. I\u2019ve watched the guys playing and I miss being in contention, so I\u2019m looking forward to getting back and competing again.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the end of last year, Schwartzel spoke at length about his desire to regain the consistency which has always been the hallmark of his game, but which left him during an injury-plagued 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy body feels a little fresher after the break. I was quite fatigued at the end of last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I can just play consistent golf \u2013 whatever the result may be \u2013 I just want to start off in a nice consistent way. I want to start off on a good base and build from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Returning to a venue that has been so good to him over the years will make him an obvious threat in a field that features a strong contingent of young South Africans in defending champion Branden Grace, 2008 winner Richard Sterne and George Coetzee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve obviously got very good memories of this place, going back to my junior golf days. It\u2019s a highlight of the year for me to come back and play the Joburg Open.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JOHANNESBURG \u2013 After a six-week break, Charl Schwartzel is itching to return to competition at one of his favourite venues in this week\u2019s Joburg Open at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club. Schwartzel ended 2012 in spectacular fashion when he won the Thailand Golf Championship by 11 strokes and then the Alfred Dunhill Championship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-17839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}