IF only every golfer was like Ernie Els. If only each of us, no matter what game we play, what job consumes our daily thoughts, could act like the big man. Better still, if only everyone could react like Ernie.
The purpose of this article is to celebrate the South African’s second successive European Tour Number One title and yet the irony is that this singular soaring success must be set against a backdrop of perceived failure by the man himself.
Of course ‘failure’ in this sense is relative. Top player in Europe, second on the US PGA Tour, millions of euros and dollars won and a happy, healthy family mean that Ernie Els is a very lucky man indeed. He knows this, embraces the thought with that slow, bashful grin of his, and still there is the small, bitter worm of regret, of what might have been, that forever will embroider 2004 for him.
The fact is this: In January of this year Els hatched an outrageous global plan. For several seasons he had chased Tiger Woods and the American’s title as the World Number One. Els wanted this accolade and so he determined to achieve his ambition in the most vibrant manner possible. “I set out to win the Grand Slam, believed I could do it, prepared myself for it,“ he said.
He nearly did it, too. But first Phil Mickelson at Augusta National in the Masters Tournament, then Retief Goosen in the US Open Championship, Todd Hamilton at the 133rd Open Golf Championship and finally Vijay Singh at the US PGA Championship wrecked Ernie’s grand scheme. He could have won each of these Majors, played himself into contention, but a few putts here and there, a slice of bad luck when least required, speared his ambition.
What impressed, however, is not that he came so close to Major success but that each time this lion of a man came back from cruel disappointment to enter the lists once more and to joust with the demons that dance in every golfer’s head.
The biggest of these demons came out to play after the Open at Royal Troon. This, more than the other three defining titles, was the Major Els really should have had in 2004. He had a ten foot putt to win on the 18th hole and hit one of the weakest efforts of his professional career. Instead of victory it was a play-off and though Els tried to bludgeon Hamilton with power, the American, to his great credit, held strong.
A month later in Wisconsin, Els three putted the final green at Whistling Straits - a sort of psychedelic homage to the great links of Britain - to miss out on a play-off against Singh. More than anything else, more than any other time in his blistering career, these disappointments cut deep into Els’s psyche. Lots of money, yes, but even greater regret. Discontent flowed everywhere for Els. He had set out to capture the world, but had come up agonisingly short.
“I was very cut up by my summer,“ he says. “After the US PGA Championship I really wanted to draw the line and to make the switch away from the mood I fell into. My family, especially my wife Liezl, were great, but I had to do it myself and it was hard.”
The inspiration for this recovery was provided by Europe, specifically by Ireland, where Els is feted by the fans and where he may indulge his love of a pint and a chat if he chooses. The World Golf Championships - American Express Championship event over the lush contours of Mount Juliet Conrad provided the landscape for Ernie to finally achieve closure of all that regret.
Victory there also effectively clinched the European title for him. It also achieved something else, moving him ahead of Tiger at last in those World Rankings. Of course, big-time sport is nothing if not ironic and so, having overtaken Woods, he found himself behind Singh whose own prodigious season had taken the relentless Fijian to Number One.
Even Els had to laugh out loud at this point. “This is some crazy game man,” he grinned. And then he began to prepare himself for the challenge of taking on Singh in 2005.
“I’ll be after him. That’s for sure. If every tournament is a learning experience then I’ve had to learn some tough lessons in Major Championships in 2004. All you can do is to try to take the positives out of it and to learn from your mistakes and then come back better and stronger next year. Trust me, that's exactly what I intend to do.
“For a few days after I lost to Todd at Troon I felt about as bad as I can remember ever feeling after a golf tournament. That says it all really. But then you put that into perspective, you realise that you’ve contended in those Majors, won elsewhere and ended Number One in Europe again and things don’t feel so very bad.
“Winning in Ireland was huge for me. It closed the book. I had to do this myself and I did it and I’m proud of that. Otherwise I might have been left behind. The fact is I couldn’t afford to look back. To stay at the top in this game you have to move forward all the time. It seems I’ve been chasing Tiger for the last four or five years and now I’ve got to chase Vijay. But I’m feeling much better and have a different attitude now so it’s game on.”
Moving forward has been the theme of Els’s golfing life ever since he emerged as a prodigious talent in the early 1990s. His reputation preceded him when he finally exited South Africa for Europe but it was these formative years on The European Tour that have honed Els as a golfer and shaped him as a man.
Since 1998 when he finished eighth on the Volvo Order of Merit he has been 12th, third, fourth, third, first and now first again. During this time he has developed into a global player, a man comfortable in many time zones and a golfer determined not to devote himself to one geographical area.
But with his main home just down the road from The European Tour Headquarters at Wentworth Club in Surrey, England, he always has had, and always will have, a special relationship with the circuit he has now headed for two successive seasons. This commitment to Europe is hardly surprising because Ernie Els is a man who appreciates what the Tour has done for him and his family.
At Wentworth, the Club not the offices, he is a familiar figure. There are no special fanfares when he arrives for a game or a beer, just a grin here and a nod there. Away from the big stages that he so gracefully inhabits, Els fights hard to be just another bloke. That he succeeds completely in this particular ambition brings enormous credit to him and to those close friends and family who form the core of his world.
‘Nice’ is a much abused word with its modern hint of mediocrity but ‘nice’ in the proper sense is the word that most swiftly springs to mind when asked to describe Ernie. The other is ‘decent’.
These are not words that may be ascribed to everyone. The professional sports arena is a harsh place whatever game a man plays for a living. Reputations may be quickly made but even more quickly shredded. Fortunes are available but so too is disappointment and penury. It is, quite literally, survival of the fittest and these lean men often have to pull a mean cloak around themselves as protection.
Not Els. He is what he is. In triumph and despair he has not changed. He remains the guy next door even if it can be slightly galling that his door is so much bigger than most of ours.
His victories in 2004, in Ireland, in the Heineken Classic, and the HSBC World Match Play Championship on The European Tour, and The Memorial Tournament and The Sony Open in Hawaii on the US PGA Tour, continue to define him as one the outstanding few of his generation but in so many other areas he always has been a winner anyway.
Whether Els ever actually makes it to the World Number One title remains to be seen. However, admirable though two European Order of Merit victories are, many others who know him, already have ranked Theodore Ernest Els. And, believe me, nobody comes higher. In Europe or beyond.
Bill Elliott
Reproduced by kind permission of The European Tour Yearbook 2005
