Champion Charl Schwartzel's father, George, often lost his temper during his golfing days

VEREENIGING, South Africa — South Africa’s two most recent major winners met as juniors at the SA Boys tournament, and Louis Oosthuizen made quite an impression on Charl Schwartzel after only one hole.

“He three-putted the first hole, and he had quite a temper on him,” Schwartzel said of his closest friend on tour. “He really got cross. And I was very surprised. I looked at my dad and I was like, ‘Do you see that? Do you see that?’ ”

It probably didn’t seem all that bad to Schwartzel’s old man. George Schwartzel was a good golfer, but he was an even better tantrum thrower.

“It made a monster out of me,” the elder Schwartzel admits of his golf frustrations.

Dale Hayes, a former Euro­pean Tour star who owns a golf club (Zwartkop) near Pretoria and is a commentator on Australian TV, has rich tales of George Schwart­zel’s temper. There was the time he missed a putt and tried to hit the sole of his shoe but broke his pinky toe instead. There was the time he lost his ball during a provincial team qualifier at Zwartkop and chased his caddie up the ninth fairway.

“My father is sitting here with all the guys who are choosing the team,” said Hayes, whose father, Otway, was the longtime club pro at Zwartkop. “Of course, George doesn’t get picked. He comes to my father and says, ‘I can’t believe I didn’t get picked. I should be the third or fourth choice for that team.’ My father says, ‘George, you think that might have anything to do with the fact that you were threatening your caddie’s life on the ninth hole?’ George says, ‘Do you really think that’s why they left me off?’ ”

One of Hayes’ favorite tales comes from George Schwart­zel’s last national amateur event in 1978 at Milner­ton near Cape Town, when he had gotten fed up with the pace of play on one of the seaside holes.

“He’s standing there waiting, and eventually he just loses it,” Hayes said. “So off he goes through the bush onto the beach, takes off his clothes and goes for a swim. Comes back, puts his clothes back on, walks across. By this time we’re looking for him and don’t know where he is. Walks up and hits his shot and carries on.”

George Schwartzel corroborates the story: “It was slow play and such a beautiful day and the water looked so good. I love swimming, so I went swimming. The group I was playing with had already finished the hole and were a hole-and-a-half ahead of me, so I had to play back through the field and catch up to them.”

The golfing anxieties that fueled his temper as a competitor manifest themselves differently as an observer. He can barely watch his sons Charl and Attie compete.

“I’ll watch a couple holes and then disappear and come back,” he said. “I find it’s difficult to walk all 18 holes.”

Said Hayes: “He’ll normally amble up and hide behind trees and work out what’s happening up there. Eventually he’ll just go back to the clubhouse and sit there and watch on television.”

The demons that haunted him as a golfer cause George to project all manner of foul thoughts on what might go wrong for his boys.

“What’s happened to him is it’s gone from getting angry to being nervous,” Hayes said. “He’s hopeless. And he’s so negative. He’ll say, ‘He’s hit it left here every day,’ or ‘He three-putted this green twice in the last five years.’ He’s a nightmare.”

At Leopard Creek, when Charl Schwartzel won his first European Tour event, his nervous father ended up lying under a tree and taking a nap.

“In 2010, when he played in the final group at Doral with Ernie (Els), I told my wife, ‘I can’t watch this,’” George said. “I took a sleeping pill and went to his bedroom and slept. I said, ‘Only wake me up when he’s finished.’ ” 

That was his plan for Masters Sunday last year when the anxiety bubbled up after Schwartzel’s approach on No. 1 settled into the gallery in an impossible spot.

“I’m saying to my wife, ‘What is he doing? Why is he hitting there?’ ” he said. “She’s the positive one.”

The stress built up as three-time Masters winner Nick Faldo told the TV audience how Schwartzel would do well to keep his third shot on the green and make a tough bogey. When Schwartzel chipped in with a 6-iron for birdie and elicited an “Oh my word!” from Faldo, his father had seen enough.

“After the chip shot I said, ‘Forget this. I’m going to take a sleeping pill,’ ” he said.

Lizette, Charl’s mother, urged him to sit back down in front of the television.

“So I watched the whole thing,” he said. “It was just magnificent.”

Now that golf is only a pastime, George Schwartzel has reined in his emotions, just as Oosthuizen matured from the junior who got cross after a three-putt. The father and son played as partners in the Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews last fall.

“So the last six months he played more golf than he has in the last 10 years,” Schwartzel said of his father.

They finished 27th out of 168 teams in the pro-am, two shots shy of making the cut to play Sunday. Despite a few dodgy shots that kept Charl’s wife, Rosalind, on constant alert behind the ropes, the elder Schwartzel never complained.

“Since he stopped playing competitively, he’s mellowed quite a lot,” Schwartzel said. “He realized it wasn’t worth all the fuss.”