Schwartzel enjoys wife's support

Rosalind Schwartzel understands the golfer’s life. She was a ranked provincial tennis player, but her father, Brian Jacobs, was the golf teaching pro at Meyerton Golf Club near Schwartzel’s hometown. Her cousin is pro golfer Justin Rose.

Schwartzel met Rosalind after he left school to turn pro, but they didn’t start dating until 2008, shortly after his breakup from a longtime girlfriend had taken an emotional toll on his game.

“Whatever you do, it all starts at home,” he said. “If you’re happy at home, it will feed into what you do as a professional.”

After the breakup, he said, his golf game “wasn’t going anywhere. I met Rosalind and have been very happy within myself.”

Rosalind has “followed the summers” with Charl ever since. They got married in September 2010 and briefly lived in his childhood bedroom before they built a home near Lanseria on the north side of Johannesburg.

“She’s from a golfing family. I think it makes a big difference,” he said. “A golfer’s life is a very selfish life. That’s the way it is. If it was not like that, you wouldn’t really succeed in it. Not everyone understands that.”

In 2011, the Schwartzels made 27 transoceanic or transcontinental flights to and from tournaments on five continents.

“She supports me very much and goes everywhere,” Schwart­zel said. “It can be a very, very lonely life. To have someone out there, I don’t have to worry too much. She’s very independent and goes out and does things. But she’s out there walking with me for support in rain and wind. That means a lot.”

Rosalind was at Augusta with her parents, Brian and Colleen, last April. All week she had a sense that something magical was at work.

“To see him succeed in what he loves is great; to see him win that day was phenomenal,” she said. “He was so calm and relaxed all week long. That Sunday you had this feeling that something special was going to happen. It was all the sudden like this rocket going off.”