If February was a memorable month for Ernie Els, with his European Tour victories in Australia at the Heineken Classic and the Johnnie Walker Classic, then October certainly stood comparison with that. In fact, as weekends go, the third one in October was not a bad one at all for the South African.
On the Friday, he celebrated his 34th birthday with a two hole victory over fellow South African Tim Clark in the quarter-finals of the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth Club. On the Saturday he celebrated being confirmed as winner of the Volvo Order of Merit with news that closest challenger Darren Clarke had not entered for the Telefonica Open de Madrid. And on the Sunday, he celebrated a 4 and 3 victory in the 36 hole final over Denmark’’s Thomas Björn with a £1 million first prize, the largest ever in Europe or America.
The win, his seventh in all around the globe in 2003, saw Els move alongside his fellow South African Gary Player and Spain’’s Seve Ballesteros as a five time winner of the prestigious title.
Indeed it was Ballesteros, commenting on the final for BBC television, who helped present the gleaming new Mark McCormack Trophy, in honour of the event's late founder figure, and who paid Els the ultimate accolade. “Ernie is simply fantastic,” said the Spaniard. “He has more natural ability and talent than Tiger Woods. If he wants to be World Number One, he will be.”
These were sentiments that stirred ‘The Big Easy’’. “Those are big words from one of my all time heroes,” said the South African. “But I do now feel that I can take my game to a new level.”
Certainly Els has few equals in the match play sphere at Wentworth Club, having collected his five titles in just ten years, during which time he has played 22 matches, winning 18 of them.
Highlight of his earlier rounds this year undoubtedly came in the semi-final against 1997 champion Vijay Singh. Four down after 15 holes, Els set a new World Match Play Championship record by winning eight holes in succession, the last three of the morning round and the first five of the afternoon, beating the seven hole sequence set by Tony Lema against Gary Player in 1965. In the process, Els turned the match on its head and gave him the impetus to go on and win.
Mention of Woods is appropriate however, for the American began the month with victory in the WGC – American Express Championship at the Capital City Club in Atlanta.
He had just completed his eighth victory in the World Golf Championship in 15 events played since the inception of the series in 1999, only Northern Ireland’’s Darren Clarke, with two victories, having won more than once.
It was also Woods’’s 39th win in 143 professional starts on the US PGA Tour – equalling the career records of luminaries such as Gene Sarazen and Tom Watson - and his 52nd worldwide in a career barely into its eighth year. It was his fifth win of the season and the fifth year he had attained that level of excellence.
The Capital City Club, opened only 16 months prior to the event, proved to be a demanding test for the best players in the world, which is exactly the way Woods liked it. He added: “It's fun when you have a chance to play against the best. This field is right off the Official World Golf Ranking -- it can't get any better than that.”
While Els’’s and Woods’’s respective victories yielded the biggest prize funds of the month, perhaps the most well-received win came in the week between and saw home hero Maarten Lafeber win the Dutch Open.
The last time it happened, Wilhelmina was Queen of The Netherlands and King George VI ruled Britain. Both countries were finding their feet, two years after the end of World War II and Charlton Athletic beat Burnley 1-0 at Wembley in the FA Cup Final in England. The year was 1947 and the Dutch Open winner in Eindhoven was Joop Rühl.
Twenty seven years later there was another auspicious occasion for Dutch golf in Eindhoven, although it was not fully appreciated at the time. The occurrence? The birth of Lafeber himself.
A little less than three decades on and, thanks to Lafeber, Dutch golf celebrated another golden moment. Following in the footsteps of Rolf Muntz, who won the Qatar Masters in 2000, and Robert-Jan Derksen who claimed the Dubai Desert Classic in March 2003, there came the first home winner of the Dutch Open in 56 years.
Lafeber had, at last, found the key to open the door to victory, a door on which he had been knocking for two years, holding his nerve in a tense final round to win by a shot from Mathias Grönberg and Søren Hansen.
The final two events of the month saw The European Tour move to Spain, the first week crowning another home winner in the shape of Miguel Angel Jiménez in the Turespaña Mallorca Classic, while Argentina’’s Ricardo Gonzalez completed the month with victory in the Telefonica Open de Madrid.
At this time of the year it is traditional for European Tour Members to exhibit their skills in tournaments around the world and, leading the way, was seven time Volvo Order of Merit winner Colin Montgomerie, who captured the Macau Open to maintain his impressive record of winning at least one title a year since 1993.
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