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Former Masters champ Schwartzel (wrist) out for season

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“I said, ‘Do you think that’s really fair?’ He said, ‘Yeah, you are behind.’ I said `No, we are not. We are not holding up anyone. The guys behind us aren’t even on the 17th tee. And the guys in front of us are finished.’ I get it if we have nine holes to go, that maybe we are a hole behind, but the fact is the group in front of us finished 14 minutes behind the group in front of them. The group in front of them finished 16 minutes behind that group. So, we were exactly in slot for what was going down the last few holes.” – Charl Schwartzel, explaining his spat with a rules official

Former Masters champ Charl Schwartzel will miss the rest of the PGA Tour season as he looks to recover from a lingering wrist injury.

Schwartzel, 34, shared the news Saturday night on Twitter, adding that “with a long career still ahead of me, I will get this fixed and I look forward to the comeback.”

The South African won the Masters in 2011, and he added another Tour victory at the Valspar Championship in 2016. But this year he slipped outside the top 100 in the world rankings for the first time since 2008, having made just four cuts in 13 starts. He withdrew from last month’s PGA Championship because of injury and was also a late withdrawal ahead of U.S. Open sectional qualifying on Monday.

Schwartzel has not made a cut since the Corales Punta Cana Resort & Club Championship in March, and he hasn’t played since missing the cut alongside countryman Louis Oosthuizen at the Zurich Classic in April. His lone top-10 finish this season came at the Puerto Rico Open, where he tied for sixth.

Schwartzel is currently 171st in the season-long points race, meaning he’ll likely begin the 2019-20 season equipped with a medical extension as he looks to maintain his exempt status on Tour.