How Charl Schwartzel beat Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy to win the Masters

It was one of those leaderboards where a playoff was a foregone conclusion until it wasn’t.

Eight different players held at least a share of the lead on Sunday at the 2011 Masters and there was more at stake than usual.

Rory McIlroy looked to convert a four-shot advantage for his first major, Tiger Woods hunted his fifth Green Jacket, Australia had a huge chance of a first-ever Masters title and Luke Donald wanted to become England’s first champion at Augusta since 1996.

But it was Charl Schwartzel, making his second Masters appearance in his first year on tour and yet to break the top 10 at a major, who produced the clutch moments each of his competitors couldn’t to raise both arms aloft, both withstanding the blaze of the Augusta sun and his scorching hot putter.

“As time goes by, you start appreciating what you did, you know,” Schwartzel said. “At the time, when you do it and you’re defending and the years just following that, there’s quite a lot of pressure of trying to perform well and compete again and see if you can win another one.

“But the more I go back, the more I appreciate what an achievement it was at the time, and I’m just honoured to be able to go back and play there until they ask me to stop.”

Playing in the penultimate group with KJ Choi, the then 26-year-old hit an uncharacteristically wayward approach to hole 1, only to rectify this with a remarkably perfect chip that scooted across the dry Augusta turf and dropped into the hole.

The deficit to McIlroy was halved to two shots instantly and more heroics followed on hole 3. Finding the 3^rd putting surface at the Masters is like landing your ball on a greyhound’s nose, but Schwartzel dissected the thin slither with a spinny shot from 108 yards that screwed back into the hole.

So, the South African, with laughs shared with his caddie drowned by the raucous cheers of the greenside patrons, didn’t have to putt on two of the first three holes. A bogey on the next brought him back to the field, and the fun was about to begin.

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Charl Schwartzel Masters: A story of the 12th hole at Augusta National

Schwartzel was sat with fellow South African and Masters playoff loser Louis Oosthuizen for this interview, and the pair shared a laugh recalling a practice round moment from one occasion at the Masters, detailing how tough the par-3 12th hole is.

“The green sits at an angle so although it’s quite big, it’s actually really small for where the pin is, so you’ve got to time the wind so not like you rush shots, but that’s one where if you get the right winds for your club you need to hit it quickly,” Schwartzel said.

“I remember I was playing a practice round once and I hit a 9 iron…

“He hit a 9-iron in the middle of the dam and the next one he hit over the green,” Oosthuizen said, interjecting and presumably as baffled as Schwartzel was at two vastly different outcomes despite using the same club.

“Each shot was 30 or 45 seconds apart. So, the one hit barely reached the water and then I hit the same club, and it flew the green. You can’t explain that,” Schwartzel added.

How Schwartzel sealed success at the 2011 Masters

Jason Day, Adam Scott and Geoff Ogilvy wanted to make the baggy green mark on the Masters that Greg Norman couldn’t. Ogilvy, a former US Open champion, would rue two early bogeys, but his fellow countrymen were there pitching at the end, jostling for the lead with Schwartzel, Woods, and Angel Cabrera in the last four holes.

“I was very content that day. I felt really calm and it’s weird how you get these high-pressure situations, and you just feel at ease. (I) got off to a great start, the chip-in on one I’d say is the thing that could’ve gone wrong early being four behind but I managed to have a great chip-in there and Rory bogeying and, obviously I holed out on number three.”

“So, all of a sudden, I was all square, but I never felt a huge amount of pressure, I just felt really level-headed and also because the lead changed so many times, you couldn’t focus on one person specifically. I know everyone talks about Rory, but the lead changed eight times on the back nine and not including Rory and that was different guys, so I kept playing solidly.”

While Day and Scott only managed pars on the gettable par-5 15^th hole, this presented a green and golden opportunity for Schwartzel. He scared the hole on 14 for a long-range birdie but made no mistake on the next.

From about 20 feet below the hole on the par-3 16^th, he rolled it in to reach 12-under now with everybody staring upwards at the man whose best major finish was tied for 14^th at the previous year’s Open Championship, won by his friend and fellow South African Louis Oosthuizen.

“I actually had a lot of opportunities between the fifth hole and the 15^th hole, a lot of really good shots,” he added. “I didn’t make a putt. I think on 15, that was the most important birdie. For me it was the easiest birdie of the lot, but if I didn’t birdie 15, you most probably don’t get on that run so that whole stretch, I felt like 15 was by far the most important one.

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“Then it was like a snowball effect, started hitting good shots and the putts all of a sudden from shaving the hole earlier on were all going in so, it was a great feeling.”

Perhaps his shakiest blow in this quartet of holes was on the 17^th tee. His visored head inched right for a second, the fairway narrowed. His second shot was semi-blocked by trees, but Schwartzel was unfazed and arrowed an approach to about 15 feet which he converted for a one-shot lead.

Woods was now too far back, McIlroy was on his way to a final-round 80, the patrons circled round the 18^th green were thrilled by Donald’s chip-in birdie and the guts of Day and Scott to remain one behind, but Schwartzel dashed their hopes by splitting another fairway and needing only a par to seal the deal.

But finding the short grass didn’t always come naturally to the man draped in what is now an iconic striped Nike shirt. He was ranked 95^th in driving accuracy that season on the PGA Tour, hitting 484 of a possible 784 fairways.

“I think it gives me room off the tee!” Schwartzel said when asked why Augusta National speaks to his game. “Driving has been my Achilles heel for a while, but at Augusta, if you hit it offline, you’re not really losing a ball so you can work a shot and get it on the green and I scramble really well.

“So I have those off-days that tend not to be too disastrous and when I do start playing nicely, I can score so I feel like I’ve got a bit of space so the course all of a sudden sits better on my eye than a golf course that has out of bounds and water hazards where I can make a quick disaster.”

Not only did his shot into 18 nestle parallel to the hole setting up the formality of two putts for the championship, but his final putt of the week curled inside the right lip to complete one of the most impressive closing performances the Masters has seen.

Schwartzel gave South Africa its fifth Green Jacket, 50 years after Gary Player’s first victory down Magnolia Lane and 25 years after Jack Nicklaus was also four-under in the last four to win at 46 years old.

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