Els rules Schwartzel out of Presidents Cup

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – The International Presidents Cup team will be without at least one familiar face with two-time PGA TOUR winner Charl Schwartzel ruled out by captain Ernie Els.

Schwartzel is out of golf indefinitely with a wrist injury, a fact he announced on his social media last Saturday night. While he may find a way back before the December 12-15 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne, Els does not see the 2011 Masters champion as an option for his team.

Schwartzel has been on the last four International teams, starting with the 2011 event that was also at Royal Melbourne.

“I’ve been forced, due to my wrist injury to take the remainder of the season off to give my wrist time to rest and heal,” Schwartzel tweeted.

“It’s very frustrating but with a long career still ahead of me, I will get this fixed and I look forward to the comeback.”

Els, a fellow South African, revealed he had spent time with Schwartzel to get an idea on his friends’ plight.

At 93rd in the current International Team standings, Schwartzel was already going to need something special to prove himself an option – perhaps as an experienced elder statesman in what promises to be a team with an injection of new blood.

With the wrist bothering him for some time, he’d managed just one top-10 this season – a T6 at the Puerto Rico Open. In 12 starts he had missed eight cuts and was a WD after the first round at the Genesis Open.

“I saw a Charl a week or so ago, his injury is pretty severe,” Els said on the eve of his 27th consecutive U.S. Open.

“I don't think he's going to be seen until the end of the year. I think he's going to have to take a couple of months off. He's got tendonitis. His wrist is all banged up. So I think he's doing the right thing to take time off.

“I know he's very disappointed that he's not going to be able to play in the Presidents Cup or not be available. And I understand that. These things happen.”

The International team has not won the Presidents Cup since 1998 – which coincidentally was held at Royal Melbourne. While the top four players in the current standings are veterans of Cup’s past, just one of the next 10 players on the list have played the biennial team event before.

Marc Leishman, Hideki Matsuyama and Louis Oosthuizen have been on the past three teams while Adam Scott has been on eight straight teams dating back to 2003. After that only eighth placed Jason Day (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017) has experience.

The top eight in the standings following the TOUR Championship make the team before Els will add four captains picks at a later date.

Haotong Li, C.T. Pan, Cameron Smith, Justin Harding, Abraham Ancer, Sung Kang, Shugo Imahira, Jazz Janewattananond and Sungjae Im are all in line to force their way into a Presidents Cup debut.

“We've got an exciting team building. There's a lot of youngsters… and guys some haven't even heard of, guys coming through and showing their hand,” Els said.

“There's a lot of interest from these young guys that want to make the team. We'll miss Charl, but we'll move on. The whole team is shaping up so differently than anything we've had in the past. It seems like in the past there were Australians, South Africans as the bulk, and then some of the Asian guys around it. Now it seems like we could have the bulk of our team could be Asian players, and the rest of the world, so to speak, is going to be getting in the team (around them).

“I'm really excited with what's going on. This is kind of a new step for us, for the Presidents Cup, to move in a different direction going forward. And I see the guys buying into it, which I'm really excited about. It will be a very new, diverse team that some haven't even heard of, but it's going to be a very competitive team.”