The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 12 January 2009 /

Charl Schwartzel's 12 on a par three causes carnage on the Joberg Open market only for the score to be changed to a one. But it's still not a good start to 2009 for the Punter. If only he'd taken his own advice...

As Yazz would say, the only way is up; it's been a poor and frustrating start to my punting year with losses on both tours.

After all my initial picks at the Joberg Open had failed to spark, I jumped aboard the Schwartzel train at [26.0] early on Saturday morning, after he'd played eight holes.

He then birdied the next two and double bogeyed the 11th, a little disappointing but what happened next was quite bizarre.

I looked at the leaderboard on the European Tour's website and he appeared to have vanished. I scanned up and down a few times and then cast my eyes down to the very bottom of the list and there he was; three or four places above last. He'd plummeted around 60 places and when I highlighted his score it showed that he'd made a 12 on the par three 12th! Carnage ensued in the market and he was matched at [80.0] but minutes later the 12 was changed to a one. I've no idea how it happened but it's pretty safe to assume I was happier than the layer at [80.0] was.

At the end of the weather interrupted third round Schwartzel was tied for the lead with Andrew McLardy and David Drysdale and he started yesterday as second favourite behind Retief Goosen, who was a single shot off the lead.

A bogey at the first wasn't the start I was looking for but birdies at holes two and four saw my man take the sole lead and he was matched at a low of [2.52], then on the sixth he drove into the water and dropped a shot!

Truth is, I couldn't really decide whether to ditch him or stick with him for a while and I traded in and out a few times but ended up sticking with him, eventually deciding upon odds on as the target for a proper lay to ensure a nice profitable week. A decision I was to regret.

He bounced back straight away with a couple of birdies on seven and eight but he soon lost his way again. This wasn't the first time Schwartzel has choked while in contention and I usually disregard or even take him on. When he won in Madrid back in October I was very much against him and concluded afterwards that his stoic performance could very well have been a one off; one swallow doth not a summer make I wrote. If only I'd heeded my own advice, but it was such a weak leaderboard, nobody in the mix could be described as reliable.

It was Anders Hansen who came through to take the title, a raft of birdies saw him ambush the leaders on the front nine and although he could only play the back nine in level par, only Andrew McLardy put up a challenge. The usually unreliable McLardy was pretty solid until the last hole when a very wide drive meant he couldn't make the birdie he needed to force a play-off.

Picking the bones out of the aftermath, the shock really has to be Goosen; he had a dreadful day and can't be trusted anymore.

At the Mercedes, Geoff Ogilvy stormed to a third round lead of seven shots which looked unassailable but, as stated on Saturday, I'm not a massive Ogilvy fan so I layed him at [1.18] to save the weekend, just in case he blew up.

Lo and behold he started bogey, bogey and nearly went in the hazard on the fifth. He cleared it by a few feet and that was the first turning point, he went on to birdie that hole and the next.
But he then bogeyed the next two holes, Antony Kim got to within a shot and he drifted right out to around [1.9]. Unfortunately, I didn't back him back and five minutes later came the second turning point when he'd eagled the ninth and was back down to [1.2] again. It was bedtime.

When I got up this morning I was surprised to see he'd won by six shots - a stroll in the park if you just looked at the leaderboard. Leading by so far is an odd position to be in and it's not something many players are used to. It's hard to have an opinion either way as to the strength of this performance. Yes, he wobbled but in the end he won convincingly and that's now two wins in as many months so his game's clearly in tip-top form.

The year really gets going this week with two mouth-watering events with very strong fields; I'll preview both the Abu Dhabi Championship and the Sony Open on Wednesday.

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