It's hunt the Tiger for Dr Jekyll Els

Ian Chadband13 April 2012

Ernie Els was back at home in Wentworth today with a Claret Jug to stare at on his mantelpiece. A good job too because otherwise he might only have had the ruins of his own career upon which to gaze.

That may sound a bit overdramatic but the big man didn't think so. He'd seen fine players choke at majors they'd had in their grasp and knew they'd never quite recovered from the torment. If, at Muirfield, he'd lost an Open Championship which looked impossible for him to lose, then he wondered if he'd have ever been the same man again.

That he prevailed in an historic showdown to this compelling 131st edition was therefore a delight. Not only did it guarantee the name of a worthy champion, massively popular with both competitors and galleries alike, being inscribed on the jug but it also seemed to remind this most splendid of players that he really does have the both the talent and the heart to catch a Tiger.

His mate Nick Price noted yesterday: "People think Ernie's so laid-back that he doesn't try too hard or doesn't care but, believe me, he wants it more than anyone."

You could see it this time last week as the Big Easy cut an uneasy figure, reflecting glumly about his slump in form and about his hurt at criticism from old legends who evidently felt he'd been leading the bunch of white-flag waving luminaries whenever Tiger Woods was around.

"It was unfair. I work hard at everything in my game," he'd protested. Yet in the next breath, he gave those critics more ammunition, observing with a tinge of resignation: "When I've had it going, I still got beat by Tiger. Maybe I'm not good enough. Who knows?"

It was the uncertainty of a man who, after winning his second US Open title in 1997 and having being hailed as a "golfing God" by Curtis Strange, was, at first, convinced he'd go on and sweep the Majors. Then found only, as one near miss followed another - he'd subsequently had seven top 10 finishes, including three seconds and a third before yesterday - that Woods's dominance had begun to drastically modify his own ambitions,

It was that uncertainty which accompanied him yesterday on a voyage to the title which was as choppy as the waters of the Firth of Forth had been on Saturday. At times, that journey was awesome to behold - like the seemingly unplayable bunker shot squeezed to within one foot of the pin at the 13th - and, at times, awful.

Just listening to him reflect on his agonies afterwards was almost as painful. About how he'd been three shots clear and sailing by the 12th. But how, after messing up around the 16th green like a Sunday morning hacker, he'd trudged off with a one-stroke lead having become a one-stroke deficit shot lead and asked himself: "Is this the way you want to be remembered, for screwing up in an Open?"

Then, about how he was still "so down in the dumps" even when he managed to secure the birdie-par finish which salvaged his chance to enter the Open's first-ever fourman, four-hole play-off with Thomas Levet, Stuart Appleby and Steve Elkington that his caddie, Ricci Roberts, seemed afraid to talk to him because he was afraid of the response he might get.

Els's recent record in play-offs had been so poor he didn't fancy his chances. A fluffed chip on the 17th was so wretched that he uncharacteristically chucked his wedge down in the grass in disgust. After Levet had blown his chance by bogeying the 18th and the two Australians had succumbed by making fives too, Els had another putt on the 18th to win. An hour earlier, it was 25ft. Now, it was 20ft. Still the same result.

Perhaps fate was conspiring against him. Now into the first hole of an historic first sudden-death play-off, the engagingly cheery Frenchman Levet, who though not quite as openly barmy as Jean Van de Velde still never seemed convinced he really could win, bunkered his drive on the 18th while Els found the fairway.

Yet even then, Els had to contend with a familiar old enemy. It was the invisible little devil, he said, who liked to perch on his shoulder and whisper negative thoughts in his ear. Sure enough, his approach ended in the greenside bunker. Yet just as quickly, the gremlin disappeared as the South African, perched precariously with left leg in the trap and right jutting out of the back, somehow splashed a magical shot to within four feet.

Levet bogeyed and, third time lucky, Els, despite admitting to never having felt more nervous, at last sank the putt which brought him the title he'd dreamed of winning as an eight-year-old kid growing up in Johannesburg. At last, too, he could remind himself with a boyish smile: "I still have my moments."

At only 32, there will be plenty more.

"I still sometimes play like a man that's got a lot of talent," he shrugged, before adding with that typically self-effacing manner: "Then I can turn around and play really poorly. I've got a little Jekyll and Hyde in me when it comes to my golf."

But Dr Jekyll was beating Mr Hyde again. He didn't get the ultimate high of outduelling Woods down the Sunday stretch - as his critics forgot he had already done at the Genuity Championship in March - yet when the rain and wind of that murderous Saturday was destroying the Tiger, Els proved unbreakable.

With Woods' Grand Slam ambitions already over - although his final round 65 in the teeth of grievous disappointment somehow only enhanced his legend - there were indeed times yesterday when the rest of the field looked like men who didn't know how or had simply forgotten how to win a Major. Yet Els eventually remembered.

"Somehow, I pulled myself together. I guess I've got a little bit of fight in me when it counts," he said. "If I'd have lost, I would have been a different person after this. Careers have ended like this, but now, in a better way, a good way, I'm a different person. Now I'm back on track."

Back to track the Tiger and, hopefully now he's shooed away Mr Hyde and the gremlin off his shoulder, back to pursue his destiny of becoming one of the great players the game has seen.

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