Els heads quality SAA Open field
Brad Morgan
11 December 2007
Ernie Els should have been aiming for a second tournament win on the trot when the South African Airways Open tees off at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Pearl Valley Golf Estate on Thursday. However, a nightmare finish to the Alfred Dunhill Championship at the weekend left Els in a share of second spot and without the win he appeared to have sown up with only hole left to play.
With only the 18th to play, he had a two-shot lead, but it went horribly wrong on Leopard Creek's finishing hole, a 435 metre par-four. Els twice found the water, leaving him with a six-foot putt to force a playoff, but it failed to drop and John Bickerton claimed a surprising victory.
The Englishman was busy talking to a cameraman after his final round four-under-par 68 when he learned he had won the tournament. There was, he admitted, a sense of disbelief that the victory belonged to him.
'Gutted'
Els, writing on his website on
Monday, said Sunday's meltdown left him probably more disappointed than he had ever felt on a golf course..."gutted". Searching for a silver lining in the cloud hanging over his head, he said: "I played really well all week at Leopard Creek."
His effort included a superb third-round of eight-under-par 64, which he described as "the round I'd been looking for in a while", in which all aspects of his game came together.
Golf, though, can be really unforgiving and Els will have to use his round of 64 and the 71 good holes he played as motivation for the SAA Open - the second oldest national open in the world - where he will be defending the title he won in December 2006 at Humewood.
It's a quality field he'll be up against, including recent Nedbank Golf Challenge winner Trevor Immelman, whose list of victories includes SAA Open titles in 2003 and 2004.
Spectacular form
Immelman was in spectacular form at Sun City, with all parts of
his game on song, as he outlasted Justin Rose for the title after a tournament-long duel.
The SAA Open is an important tournament for Immelman and this year's event is sure to be of extra significance to him because it will be the last time he plays in it with his father, Johan, as the Sunshine Tour's Commissioner.
Immelman senior has announced he will be relocating to the USA in June 2008 after a very successful four-year tenure during which prize money for the Sunshine Tour has increased from R23-million in 2003 to R50-million in 2008.
Els has won the South African Open four times and Immelman has two victories, but two other South Africans have won the event twice and both are eager their third national open titles to their list of victories, namely Retief Goosen and Tim Clark, ranked 26th and 27th respectively in the official world golf rankings.
Since claiming his 32nd career title at the Qatar Masters in January, when he was ranked eighth in the world,
it's been a poor year for Goosen. Apart from a tie for second in the US Masters, he has failed to challenge for any other titles, and he would surely view the SAA Open as an ideal opportunity to get back on top of his game.
Clark on song
Clark, meanwhile, started 2007 slowly, but his form through the second half of the year has been strong, including a runner-up finish in his most recent outing at the Children's Miracle Network Classic presented by Wal-Mart.
His results in the latter half of the year also include second place finishes at the John Deere Classic and the US Bank Championships, fifth at the BMW Championship, sixth at the World Golf Championship – Bridgestone Invitational, and seventh at The Tour Championship.
Clark missed last year's SAA Open because of injury and admitted it was hard to have to sit on the sidelines and watch the event. He's looking forward to this season's Open, especially, he says, because of the
strength of the field and because he enjoys playing in South Africa in front of his home fans.
After the majors, says Clark, the tournaments players most want to win are their national opens and, for him, it is no different.
Major winner
The strong field he referred to also includes Angel Cabrera, the 2007 US Open champion, who also tasted success in the PGA Grand Slam of Golf.
In addition, the Argentinian star made it through to the final of the HSBC World Match Play Championships where he failed to stop Els recording a record seventh victory in the event.
Another international entry who bears watching and is a bit of an unknown quality is former world number one Greg Norman. A very successful businessman, Norman has his fingers in many pies and doesn't play as much as he once did, but one wonders whether or not he might be a dark horse threat for the title.
Norman's golf course design business is one of his major ventures
and it includes three courses in South Africa that he is currently working on: the Le Grand George Golf Estate in the southern Cape, The Hills in Pretoria, and The Eye of Africa, located 17 kilometres south of Johannesburg's CBD. So, make no mistake, Norman is in touch with golf and golf courses in South Africa.
Popular visitor
Another foreign competitor to keep an eye on is Ireland's Darren Clarke, a frequent and popular visitor to South Africa.
Following the death of his wife from cancer in 2006, Clarke slipped down the world rankings as he struggled to get over his personal tragedy. Now he has re-dedicated himself to golf.
As a former world top-10 ranked player, a two-time winner of the World Golf Championships, and the winner of the 2001 Dimension Data Pro-Am at Sun City, he presents a potential threat for the South African Open title.
Young guns
Three of South African golf's young guns stand
out as potential SAA Open title challengers: Richard Sterne, Anton Haig, and Charl Schwartzel.
Sterne fills the 46th spot in the official world golf rankings. He enjoyed a good season on the recently concluded PGA European Tour, finishing 14th on the 2007 Order of Merit.
His results included winning the Celtic Manor Wales Open and the Vodacom Championships, as well as second place at the Johnnie Walker Classic, third at the BMW PGA Championship, fourth at the Barclays Scottish Open, and fifth at the Volvo China Open and the BMW Asian Open.
It's that kind of consistency that makes the 26-year-old a player to watch.
Huge victory
Haig is just 21-years-old and, while his results in 2007 have not been consistent, he is a two-time winner on the Sunshine Tour and claimed a huge victory in February when he captured the Johnnie Walker Classic in Thailand. Former winners of the event include Els, Goosen, Norman, Tiger Woods and Nick
Faldo.
At six-foot four (1.93 metres) tall, he is a big driver of the ball; Sky Sports' highly-respected golf commentator Ewen Murray puts him in the John Daly class for driving distance, so he is the kind of player that the crowds will enjoy watching.
Schwartzel is a three-time Order of Merit winner on the Sunshine Tour, which speaks volumes about his proficiency on South African courses.
His 2007 season was highlighted by a victory in the Spanish Open, his first on mainland Europe, and the first by a South African in the event since Dale Hayes won the title in 1979.
If good form in South Africa counts for anything then Louis Oosthuizen is another potential winner at the Pearl Valley Estate. He has three victories on South African soil in 2007, in the Dimension Data Pro-Am, the Telkom PGA Championship, and most recently at the Platinum Classic at the end of October.
Slight favourite
Clearly there are many possible winners
of the SAA Open, with Els, the defending champion, probably a slight favourite over a quality field.
So, let the last word on the tournament be his. Summing up the week ahead on his website, he wrote: "I've played some really good stuff the last couple of weeks. I've finished third in the Nedbank, second in the Dunhill…let's see if I can complete the sequence and finish first in this week's South African Airways Open.
"There's obviously never a bad time to win a golf tournament, but I guess now would probably be a better time than most. I fully intend to bounce back strongly and win this week's South African Open for what would be the fifth time in my career. That would be the best early Christmas present I could give to myself!"
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