JOHANNESBURG – Charl Schwartzel climbed 48 places on the latest list of the Official World Golf Ranking after his share of third in last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson on the PGA Tour, and, at 109th, he’s likely to get into the top 100 again soon.
The rise in his position takes him above Justin Harding, Wilco Nienaber and Shaun Norris on the list, and with 10 South Africans inside the world’s top 100, Schwartzel could soon make it 11.
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It was all pretty much unchanged amongst the South African top 10, with only minor movements. The most notable of those was Dean Burmester’s rise to 89th from 93rd after his sixth-place finish in the European Tour’s Betfred British Masters. That saw him swop positions on the South African list with Branden Grace.
The leading South African ahead of the second major championship of the year, the PGA Championship which tees off on Thursday, remains Louis Oosthuizen, who climbed on place to 31st. With all 10 of the South Africans in the world’s top 100 playing at Kiawah Island in North Carolina, together with Schwartzel, there could be quite a bit of movement amongst those players.
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South Africa’s top 10:
1. Louis Oosthuizen 31 (up 1)
2. Christiaan Bezuidenhout 41 (down 1)
3. Garrick Higgo 51 (unchanged)
4. Erik van Rooyen 78 (down 3)
5. Daniel van Tonder 79 (down 2)
6. Dylan Frittelli 81 (down 2)
7. Brandon Stone 87 (down 2)
8. Dean Burmester 89 (up 4)
9. Branden Grace 92 (down 1)
10. George Coetzee 96 (up 2)
SA Tour Golf