Monday saw two more players join McDowell -- Louis Oosthuizen, who qualified by winning the Open Championship, and Charl Schwartzel, who qualified via the "match the 125 money list in 7 sponsor exemptions" route.
Both players were groomed through Ernie Els's golf program in South Africa, and I must admit wondering if the two men chose to take membership simply to hang around him more and maybe get more chances to learn from him. I can certainly think of worse reasons to join!
Let me give you a little background on the two. (The photos are from their bios at augusta.com.) Obviously both are European Tour members and, since I haven't heard anything different, I suspect they intend to retain dual membership. Ernie does the same, and is currently 6th in the Race to Dubai.

After winning the Open, he posted a 4th at the Nordea Scandinavian Masters, a 9th at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, and a 4th at the KLM Open. After that he injured his foot -- the story is that he did it on the tractor he bought after winning the Open -- and his only appearance since then was the WGC in China, where he placed 72nd. Hopefully he'll be healed up in time for 2011. He's currently 10th in the Race to Dubai.

These two guys should be good additions to the PGA Tour in 2011. And with Ernie Els available to mentor them a bit, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw both of them become regular contenders over the next few months.
Any chance Finchem will be petitioning to have South Africa added as the 51st state ?
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