In the first of a two-part series, EuropeanTour.com celebrates the achievements and friendship of Open Champion Louis Oosthuizen and Masters Champion Charl Schwartzel.
When Charl Schwartzel pulled on the Green Jacket as Masters Champion in April it completed a remarkable rise to the top of the game for the South African and his long-term friend, Open Champion Louis Oosthuizen, who defends the Claret Jug next week.
The pair have been driving each other towards success since their paths first crossed as juniors in South Africa, embarking on a journey that would see them first become team-mates, then friends, European Tour winners and eventually Major Champions together.
Two years separate them in age – Oosthuizen being the senior at 28 – but for more than 15 years they have been side by side, climbing the golfing ladder whilst maintaining one of the game’s closest friendships.
Both players recall their early encounters with an obvious nostalgic sentiment, fondly reminiscing about their days learning the game among the junior ranks, learning the fundamentals that would later see them join the pantheon of golf’s elite.
“We played the first time together in 1994 in Randpark in Johannesburg. He was very small, that’s what I remember most!” said Oosthuizen.
Schwartzel recalled: “Louis is obviously two years older and I was ten years old when we first met. I got the first tee time on the tenth tee. He had already been promoted to the first tee by that stage.
“Louis was there two hours early and I asked him if he wanted to play earlier and we ended up playing together. I played with Louis Oosthuizen – I was so embarrassed! And very nervous.
“He had quite a temperament on him,” he joked. “His Dad said afterwards Louis gets so cross, especially when he putts.
“Since then we’ve been friends. He was south and I was north though so we were always competitors. After a year or two when you see each other more and play in tournaments you get to know each other and we won tournaments together. We didn’t live close – a two hour flight from each other – so it was probably only when I was 15 or 16 and Louis was 17 or 18 that we started really playing every week in the same amateur tournaments. I went to his farm and he came to mine.
“We only played for the same team when we represented South Africa in Japan in 2000 as 16 year olds, but we were good friends by then.”
“We played as amateurs together all over. We played in India in 2002, and we won a tournament together there and then travelled the UK for six weeks playing amateur tournaments when Louis won the Irish Amateur and I won the Brabazon Trophy.”
“In India we had toast and coke and tea for 11 days in a row. That’s all we ate. We lost 4kgs that week. And I don’t have anything to lose. We couldn’t take the food there for some reason.”
Oosthuizen resumed: “We had lots of fun travelling together. I still remember the Junior Worlds we won in Japan. We have some fantastic memories. The other two guys that were with us were good mates too. We gave our manager a lot of stick!”
It was at those Junior World Team Championships in Japan in 2000 that the talents of Schwartzel and Oosthuizen first came to the wider attention of the golfing world outside their homeland.
“It was the first time South Africa had ever won the World Junior Championships, so it was great,” said Schwartzel. “So the potential was there for us both to go on to bigger things, but it was early on and a lot of people achieve that sort of standard, so success doesn’t always follow. But certainly the potential was there to go on.”
Oosthuizen added: “When we played the Eisenhower Trophy in 2002, we were not really rated as individuals. You had Ricky Barnes, DJ Trahan and Hunter Mahan. The American guys tend to get more of the spotlight when you are younger, they won the tournament and we’ve come up silently.
“Since we’ve turned professional we’ve travelled everywhere together and shared the same house, apart from one year when he was on The European Tour and I was on the Challenge Tour.
“We have houses a block from each other in Palm Beach. We don’t really practise together, but it is nice to do things off the course together. We went hunting together with Nick Price recently which was brilliant, and we have barbecues. Our wives are good friends too, which makes it easier.”
Now that both players proudly have the memorabilia of a Major Championship victory adorning the walls of those houses, the inevitable comparisons have been made between the pair and compatriots Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, who flew the flag as South African Major Champions in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“Anyone who plays golf has a professional rivalry but I think me and Louis are closer than what Ernie and Retief are,” said Schwartzel. “We are a lot better friends, really good friends. We’re friends off the course and do so much together. But when you play the game you try your best against everyone, so it is also a healthy rivalry. You have to have it.”
“It’s great for South African golf,” added Oosthuizen. “In the last 15 years we’ve had five Major winners, different guys, and eight titles. South African golf is very strong.
“Other than Americans winning major titles I think we aren’t far from the top in that respect. We’ve got a good junior foundation coming through and the amateur game is great. You have things like the Ernie Els foundation, which helped me a lot, and you just have a lot of opportunities. It is such a big sporting country and golf is now seen as one of the big sports in South Africa, so they have put quite a bit of money and effort into it.”
• Visit EuropeanTour.com tomorrow to read how Oosthuizen’s Open win inspired his friend to Masters glory.
