Charl Schwartzel on comeback trail

Dubai - The 31-year-old South African - who won the Masters at Augusta four years ago - has been enduring a rather lean spell by his own high standards of late, with only one top-ten finish (Seventh at the US Open) from eight European Tour events in the second half of this calendar year.

 Charl Schwartzel believes he has played himself into something like career-best form over the past month or so to peak at this week's DP World Tour Championship here.
The 31-year-old South African - who won the Masters at Augusta four years ago - has been enduring a rather lean spell by his own high standards of late, with only one top-ten finish (Seventh at the US Open) from eight European Tour events in the second half of this calendar year.
However, Schwartzel has been on a steadily progressive upward curve since last month's poor performance at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship (T102nd after three rounds) - his worst result of the season - and duly hit a pronounced purple patch at Jumeirah Golf Estates.
"I'm just happy with a lot of the improvement," he explained. "I didn't feel like it was possible to put myself in position a few months ago.
"I've slowly got my long game back together and it's probably felt as good as it's ever been, if not the best, these last three weeks. "That's a pretty big statement, but it's probably the best I've ever hit the ball. I'm giving myself a lot of chances."
Alluding to his recent slump in form and results, which has seen him drop from a career-high sixth in the world rankings back in 2012 to his current position of 55th, Schwartzel readily concedes it has been hard to approach tournaments with high hopes without express confidence in his all-round game.
"I'd been on top of the world and then - all of a sudden - you start sliding and it feels like you're rolling off and there's nowhere to go," explained Schwartzel, who finished in 31st spot globally at the back end of last year.
"It feels like maybe something is starting to change. I've good feelings. I definitely feel confident that I'm working on the right stuff. 
"I don't know whether it's going to change this week all the way through, but it's definitely got the potential to. 
"It's nice that - at least - the game is starting to show up again a little bit and, hopefully, I can starplaying the way I used to. I'm starting to build a lot of confidence and that's very good."
Meanwhile, American Patrick Reed could have been forgiven for failing to shrug off last week's setback at the BMW Masters in Shanghai, where he finished as the runner-up to Sweden's Kristoffer Broberg following a play-off duel.
Nonetheless, he has just carried over his good form from those four days into this Thursday-Sunday stretch on the Earth Course with minimal fuss. "Golf is a game where you cannot let everything distract you and bother you," the 25-year-old commented.
"You're going to have times where you close out events and you're going to have others where you let some slip away.
"You're going to hit some good shots and end up getting bad bounces and you're going to have bad shots and get good bounces.
"It is how you handle all of it and how you move forward. I have done that pretty well and matured in that aspect of the game to not let anything linger on."
alex@khaleejtimes.com