How to Pronounce Louis Oosthuizen's name Spelling Louis Oosthuizen's out-of-Afrikaans surname is easier than figuring out how to pronounce it. In a 2011 commercial for Ping, the South African-born Oosthuizen said, "There are two names on my bag. One, nobody can pronounce, even after I won the British Open Championship. The other is Ping, which does no damage to the tongue. In the ad, he pronounced his name as "Oo-est-hayzen," with the first two syllables blending together quickly. But then Louis (pronounced "Loo-ie" as in Carnesecca) confuses us. In a video made earlier this year for Ping and Golf Monthly, he said, "Hi, I'm Louis Oosthuizen." But this time, his name rolled out of his mouth in another way: "West-hayzen." What in the name of the CBS golf analyst Peter Oosterhuis is going on here? If Oosthuizen himself shifts between pronunciations, then CBS Sports can't be faulted for doing the same thing during the Masters on Sunday when Oosthuizen led for a while but lost in a two-hole playoff to Bubba Watson. The CBS announcers called him "Oost-hyzen" and "Oost-hayzen." They had no such problem with "Watson" or "Bubba." Now here's the head-scratching part of this mystery. There are three legitimate ways to say Oosthuizen, according to his representatives at International Sports Management. There is "Oo-est-hayzen" (which can also be "Oo-erst-hayzen"). There is "West-hayzen," and, there is "Oost-hayzen." David Feherty, CBS's Irish-born golf analyst who had a home in South Africa during his first marriage, described the sound he uses to pronounce Oosthuizen as "oo-eh." And if you say it quickly enough, it can sound like a "w," and thus, "West-hayzen." And, he added, someone with an Australian accent, like the CBS golf reporter Ian Baker-Finch, might be thinking of pronouncing Oosthuizen's second and third syllables as "hayzen," but will say it "hyzen." The dialect maven in Feherty said that the last syllable in Oosterhuis's name, which is Dutch and is usually pronounced "house," should properly be said, "hase." A good explanation for the various ways to say Oosthuizen comes from Jack Wainer, a real estate title agent from South Africa who speaks Afrikaans. ""West-hayzen" is the way that South Africans would say the name," he said. Wainer, a naturalized American citizen who lives on Long Island, said that "Oo-est-hayzen" accurately reflects the name's Afrikaans roots. And he added: "Americanized, it's "Oost-hayzen." A lot of South African names are tough for Americans to pronounce. Oh, to be a South African golfer named Ernie Els.