Thursday, 22nd February 2007 at 3:13 pm

Ernie Els? No thanks…

You’re in your early 20s, you’re generally acknowledged as South Africa’s brightest young talent, and you have a spot in the Accenture World Matchplay lined up, an $8-million knockout affair that has you drawn with childhood hero Ernie Els in the first round. So why on earth did Charl Schwartzel turn down his spot in the field, and opt to spend the week in Johannesburg instead?

To give Ernie a chance, he told Feverpitcher with a laugh at Monday night’s South African Golf Awards dinner, before revealing the true reason. Schwartzel leads the Sunshine Tour’s Order of Merit, and has a third successive title in sight - but there’s an outside chance someone could catch him in the final event of the summer, this week’s Telkom PGA Championship.

And Schwartzel is determined not to be caught: he wants the hat-trick of titles, and he wants another shot at the Nedbank Golf Challenge. The Order of Merit winner gets the final place in the Sun City field at the end of the year; Schwartzel was the first to get the honour last year, and happily confirms that it’s his career highlight thus far. He wants another shot at Sun City, and so he’s in South Africa this week battling Darren Fichardt and Jean Hugo, rather than duelling with Ernie in America.

As it turns out, Els fell at the first hurdle to Bradley Dredge; that’s of peripheral interest for Schwartzel right now, however, the greater concern being the Telkom PGA, and the Order of Merit title. For local golf fans, it means a young superstar can be seen firsthand in a tournament that has an added edge; and for Charl Schwartzel, it’s a chance to spend another week at home, secure in the knowledge that there are plenty more international tournaments to come in the years ahead.