{"id":9447,"date":"2012-03-30T03:39:14","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T01:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/03\/golf-green-practice-key-to-green-jacket-for-schwartzel\/"},"modified":"2012-03-30T03:39:14","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T01:39:14","slug":"golf-green-practice-key-to-green-jacket-for-schwartzel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/golf-green-practice-key-to-green-jacket-for-schwartzel\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf-Green practice key to green jacket for Schwartzel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Simon Evans<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">March 29<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; After a year of proudly travelling with<br \/>\nhis green jacket, South Africa&#8217;s Charl Schwartzel returns to<br \/>\ndefend his Masters title knowing that handling the treacherous<br \/>\ngreens at Augusta National is the key to success in the first<br \/>\nmajor of the season.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A fearless Schwartzel birdied the final four holes last year<br \/>\nto clinch his first major title by two strokes over Australians<br \/>\nAdam Scott and Jason Day and says he was rewarded for weeks of<br \/>\nAugusta-specific putting practice.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At Augusta, if you know the greens well, you can actually<br \/>\nuse them to your benefit rather than thinking that you should be<br \/>\nscared of them. But you really need to know them like the back<br \/>\nof your hand,&#8221; said Schwartzel, who had struggled on the greens<br \/>\nwhen he finished tied for 30th in his Masters debut in 2010.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was fortunate. I asked a few guys, some of the best<br \/>\nputters in the world, I asked them what they did on the very<br \/>\nfast greens, and they gave me a bit of advice. It worked out for<br \/>\nme.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I practised for about six, seven weeks before I got there<br \/>\nto putt on those fast greens. I think that&#8217;s what made me feel<br \/>\nso comfortable. I wasn&#8217;t scared of the greens at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>That was evident during last year&#8217;s final round at Augusta<br \/>\nNational when he showed composure by draining a 20-footer on the<br \/>\n18th to complete a six-under-par 66, the low round of the day.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Under intense pressure, Schwartzel had made putts of 18 and<br \/>\n12 feet on the 16th and 17th holes as he pulled clear of the<br \/>\nAustralian pair.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>It is tough to find greens that can replicate the speed and<br \/>\ncomplex lines of Augusta but Schwartzel said for the two months<br \/>\nprior to the event he did his best to find something similar.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Simon Evans March 29 (Reuters) &#8211; After a year of proudly travelling with his green jacket, South Africa&#8217;s Charl Schwartzel returns to defend his Masters title knowing that handling the treacherous greens at Augusta National is the key to success in the first major of the season. A fearless Schwartzel birdied the final four [&hellip;]<\/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":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-9447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","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\/9447","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=9447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}