Players and public are united in their admiration for Ernie Els as the South African goes for glory at St Andrews
It is not easy being the Big Easy when disappointment calls, as it did for Ernie Els during the final round of this year’s US Open at Pebble Beach. Three under for the day standing on the 9th tee and seemingly cruising towards a victory, the South African walked into the wall.
Bogey, double bogey, bogey; and with that Els’s hopes of a fourth major were finished. Unfortunately his working day was not and the sense of loss percolated over the closing holes until he reached the back of the 18th green, where the media horde was waiting to record his reaction to losing a championship he should have won.
Els’s closing 73 went in the books but his thoughts on a third-place finish did not as he, spotting the microphones and television cameras, pulled a Burt Bacharach and walked on by. “Not speaking to the press was a bad mistake,” he says. “I was just so hot-headed because I really felt I had a chance to win.
“There’s been quite a few close ones over the last couple of years and I didn’t quite have my thoughts together. I wasn’t trying to have a swipe at anybody or deliberately being rude. To be honest, I just wanted to go and throw myself in the ocean. Sorry.”
Brutal honesty, especially when it comes to acknowledging his own failings, is just one of the appealing aspects of a personality that is not entirely reflected in Els’s wonderfully smooth swing or in a nickname that has never sat comfortably on his shoulders.
He is big, no doubt. But easy he is not – at least not all the time. Yet if he is quick to anger, he is even quicker to make amends, as was the case during the BMW Championship at Wentworth when, stung by the criticism of his design changes to the West course, Els had words with those players whom he believed had “stabbed him in the back”, including Graeme McDowell.
But after the Ulsterman won his famous victory at Pebble Beach one of the most effusive messages of congratulation came from Els. “That’s just the kind of man – the kind of champion – he is,” says McDowell.
The US Open champion is not alone in his admiration. A man could spend a very long time trawling the driving ranges of professional golf in an attempt to find someone who dislikes Els.
It is the same story with the public, who were seduced from the start by the South African’s winning ways and whose affection has deepened through the years as he celebrated his big-time successes (three major championship victories) and, perhaps more especially, endured his heart-breaking losses (too many to mention).
It is not that people feel sympathy for the preternaturally gifted multi-millionaire with the private jet but that they feel empathy. They may not recognise themselves in his lifestyle or his other-worldly golf but they certainly recognise something of themselves in his obvious vulnerabilities. He is one of them, an everyman, a peoples’ champion.
No doubt a victory for Tiger Woods, or for one of the home players, in next week’s Open at St Andrews would generate bigger headlines but it is hard to imagine a more popular winner than Els. The good news for his supporters is that such a victory may well come to pass.
After a two-year hiatus, during which he struggled with his putting, a serious knee injury and the fall-out of his son Ben’s diagnosis of autism, Els is back among the tournament favourites at every one he enters. He has already won twice on the PGA Tour this season and, had he holed a few putts at Pebble Beach, would have won there too.
“A lot of it has been down to hard work,” he says of his run of form. “But moving the family to America has been a great thing. It has made Ben and Sam [his daughter] more comfortable. I am not going to make excuses or feel sorry for myself – everybody has something in their life – but a more settled life at home has meant I’ve been able to be a bit more single-minded about golf again, like I used to be.”
The revival has come just in time, with golf’s next generation of stars, the Rory McIlroys and Anthony Kims of this world, announcing their readiness to push the old guard aside. Els names the young Ulsterman and the American as the best of the bunch. “It is OK doing well over a few weeks or months or even a couple of years. But the big question is, can you sustain it over a long period, over 10 or 15 years? I think some of the younger guys – McIlroy, Kim – realise what is needed to stay at the top. Some of them don’t.”
Kim is injured but McIlroy will carry high hopes on to the first tee at the Old Course – justifiably so perhaps but, if the youthful prince of European golf wants to write his name into the history books, he will find the path to his ambition blocked by the Holy Trinity of the sport’s last decade and a half: Woods, Phil Mickelson and, of course, Els.
“If I couldn’t play golf tomorrow and I had to look back, I would have to say, ‘You know what, Ernie, that’s a very nice career you’ve had,’” he says.
“But right now I think, if I can get everything in order with my game, I have three more majors in me. Starting with the Open at St Andrews.”
Lawrence Donegan
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