BMW South African Open Power Rankings: Top five at Glendower

Charl Schwartzel is the cream of the crop this week in his home country. He’ll be close to his Johannesburg roots when he tees it up at the BMW South African Open for the first time since 2015.

Perhaps this time he’ll win it all.

In 2015, he faltered on Sunday with a 74 to fall into a playoff, won by Andy Sullivan.

The 33-year-old comes in well rested as a T28 finish at the DP World Tour Championship in November was the last we saw of him. Despite playing primarily on the PGA Tour, Schwartzel finished 29th in the Race to Dubai.

Schwartzel failed to pick up a win for just the second time since 2009 in 2017, but he missed only four cuts and had a runner-up and third-place finish on the resume.

Besides finishing as a narrow net negative in strokes gained off-the-tee (-.015), Schwartzel was in the positive in the other major strokes gained categories, and ranked inside the top 60 in all of them.

A solid ball striker like Schwartzel should do well in benign conditions with week, and his talent is unmatched without McIlroy or others to contend this week.