A right old Charlie

Former Masters Champion Charl Schwartzel has been voted by My European Tour fans as the winner of the January Shot of the Month after a stunning effort from a cart path at the Volvo Golf Champions. Faced with a shot from the concrete of 198 yards over what looked an impossible wall of trees and bushes, the South African clipped a glorious five iron from the path and pitched it right next to the hole. “I got lucky there, but I’m sure Seve would have been very proud of it,” he said. “I still missed the putt, though, so I might as well have been short and chipped and putted!” It was a spectacular shot from this season’s Alfred Dunhill championship winner, and as such it received 43 per cent of the vote, beating Dutchman Joost Luiten into second place after his magnificent albatross during the same tournament at Durban Country Club received 28 per cent. Sergio Garcia’s chip-in en route to the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters title rounded out the top three, but it was Schwartzel who took the lion’s share of the vote. As a result, one lucky fan will receive £200 to spend on European Tour merchandise, while Schwartzel will join Thomas Björn as the second entrant into the 2014 Shot of the Year competition after the Dane’s spectacular approach in the final round of the Nedbank Golf Challenge in December. The long iron in question set up one of two crucial eagles on the final day at Gary Player CC, in Sun City, that would culminate in Björn taking the title by two strokes from Garcia and Jamie Donaldson. Both he and Schwartzel will now go forward to contest the yearly prize, along with the rest of the season’s monthly winners, as they look to follow in the footsteps of Henrik Stenson, who won last year’s award thanks to a spectacular three-wood to the 72nd hole at the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai. You can watch Schwartzel’s winning effort here: http://po.st/JanSOTMWinner.