Christiaan Bezuidenhout is making his second appearance for the International team at the Presidents Cup in 2024.
This comes off the back of making the Tour Championship on the PGA Tour for the first time, marking an incredible rise to the top of the game that, at one point, would’ve felt completely impossible.
We have taken a look back at his player’s blog for the European Tour in 2019 when Bezuidenhout opened up about his troubled childhood that started at the age of two when he accidentally drank some rat poison.
“I was playing outside when I picked up a random Coke bottle, I took a drink of it thinking it was indeed Coke, however it actually contained rat poison,” he wrote. “It was a moment which would change my life forever.”
Bezuidenhout’s stomach was pumped and he developed a stutter that led to anxiety and he spent several years using beta blockers to tackle it.
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He added: “In 2014, I had a phone call which would have a huge impact on my golf career. I was playing in the British Amateur at Royal Portrush in 2014 when after my first round I handed my scorecard in and was told that I’d been nominated for a drugs test.
“I wrote the medication down on the form prior to the drugs test, making no secret of the fact I was using this medication.
“Two months later I was back home when one afternoon my dad phoned me to tell me I needed to come home immediately. I drove straight from practice and he broke the news to me that I had been suspended. I just broke down.”
Bezuidenhout had been handed a two-year ban, later reduced to nine months.
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“It was awful,” he said. “It felt like my life was over.”
But C-Bez, as he’s known to his friends, overcame all that and has 10 professional wins to his name – including three on the European Tour. He won the Andalucia Masters in 2019 for the first time and most recently at the South Africa Open in 2020.
He is now a regular fixture on the International team at the President’s Cup, which is looking to end a torrid run against the Americans.
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