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SWEET

SPOT

Nothing screams 'I belong' more in golf than teeing up regularly on the PGA Tour. The man they call 'Bez' is a shining example of how South Africa's pathways prepared him for the journey

BY MICHAEL VLISMAS

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Christiaan Bezuidenhout's friendship he has developed with world number one Scottie Scheffler has given him many insights. The most important one has nothing to do with golf: The biggest thing he has learned from the American has less to do with par and more to do with perspective.


'Scottie and I are fairly good friends and you can learn so much from him. I look up to him and how he views life. He's just so comfortable in his own skin and who he is. Golf is not everything to him. I prefer his view of life and his career than that of say a Tiger Woods, who had a more singular focus just on golf. Scottie seems to walk a journey with people and carries them to the top with him. For him, it's not just about beating anybody and everybody. I like that,' says Bezuidenhout.


Speaking from his home in Florida where he has spent the past six years of his life and career on the PGA Tour, Bezuidenhout is well placed to speak about perspective.

He is the father of a two-year-old boy, and in October they will welcome a baby girl to join the family.


'Life has changed quite a bit for the good over the past two or so years. It's put a lot of things in perspective for me. Golf and birdies and bogeys aren't everything in life. It's great to play well, but to come off the course and have your family there is equally important,' he says.


It's astounding to think how far Bezuidenhout has come from growing up in Delmas, surviving a near-fatal drinking of rat poison as a child, and then progressing through the ranks as a top amateur and from there onto the Betway Big Easy Tour, Sunshine Tour, HotelPlanner Tour, DP World Tour and now the PGA Tour.

'Golf and birdies and bogeys aren't everything in life. It's great to play well, but to come off the course and have your family there is equally important'

'It's been six years in America now. It was an adjustment at first, but over the last three years Florida has really felt like home. The PGA Tour was always the dream for me. But if you're playing well every week, you can sometimes lose that perspective on how far you've come and that you are actually playing on the PGA Tour. I try and keep that balance, and remember where I've come from and that now I'm playing amongst the best 150 golfers in the world every week. If you told 10-year-old Christiaan that one day you'll be playing on the PGA Tour, I probably wouldn't have believed you.'


It's been years of hard work to get to this point, and as Bezuidenhout explains, it takes everything to keep that dream alive.


'The competition on the PGA Tour is next level. When you think you're playing well, then there are maybe five or 10 players still better than you. There are no margins to make bogeys or to miss a five-foot putt or to miss a green. For 72 holes, every week, you have to be on it. I've come through all the ranks in the game, and the jump from the DP World Tour to the PGA Tour is one of the biggest jumps you have to make. If you don't have your A-Game with you on the PGA Tour, you miss the cut. Every week there is a new winner, a new young star, and somebody that hits the ball further. The depth is incredible.'

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But this level of competition continues to sharpen Bezuidenhout's own game as he continues to raise the bar for himself.


'It's been a strange year for me on the golf course. My stats are the best of the last six years on the PGA Tour but my ranking doesn't show it. I've made a few more swing changes the last few months to work on speed. They are long-term changes for even more consistency. It's tough to make those changes and still compete against the best players in the world every week. But I feel like my game is much closer than my scores suggest. If I can get through these changes and this phase, and start implementing it on the course, then I'm excited about what lies ahead.'


And in a glimpse of what next season may hold and its potential, Bezuidenhout adds, 'I'm comfortable within myself'.


Scottie would approve.

TYRONE WINFIELD | CARL FOURIE | SUNSHINE TOUR