‘Goose bumps’ playing The Grand Old Lady

as he became South Africa’s perfect “10 out of 10 man”. Twelve months prior to this he had won all five of his medal match play games to lead the golfing Boks to their 1997 victory. Now, a year later, he had again done the business with five straight wins. Sensational stuff.

In the semi-finals on that freezing Sunday morning, Goosen dispatched Stuart Appleby 71-74 as South Africa defeated Australia 2-1, and then in the afternoon final the man from Polokwane (although it was Pietersburg in those days) edged out Santiago Luna in atrocious conditions, 72-73, as Spain were whitewashed 3-0.

“Retief has been our trump card,” Els said at the time, clutching the huge Dunhill Cup and sharing champagne with us three media boys from back home (myself and two golf writers from the Afrikaans papers). “To win 10 out of 10 the last two years is phenomenal. Goose was great all week this year, as was the case last year. And to shoot level par in a gale this afternoon against Luna was so impressive.”

So why am I looking back at what happened in what many may feel is the dim and distant past? Well, it just so happens that on Tuesday this week Goosen came through a tough Final Qualifier at Woburn Golf Club in England to qualify for this month’s 144th edition of The Open Championship to be held at his old happy hunting ground – the Old Course at St Andrews where he had so much success in those Dunhill Cup days.

Goose is now 46 and it’s been six years since his last win. But those six years have seen him dogged by a nagging back injury that threatened to call an early end to a career that had seen him win 43 times around the world, including two US Opens.

However, after having back surgery and taking a year off to recover, he feels he has been given a second life in golf. “I have zero back pain, and I feel like I can swing the club again,” he says. And being healthy is producing results. He’s had a top three and a top 10 on the 2015 PGA Tour, and just last Sunday he tied for fourth in the BMW International Open in Germany on the European Tour.

Now the July 16-19 British Open looms and Retief is, appropriately, getting “Goose bumps” ahead of his return to one of his favourite places to play. He’s also done well at Opens at St Andrews before, sharing fifth place in 2005 when Tiger Woods won, and placing sixth in 2010 when the Claret Jug found its way into Louis Oosthuizen’s eager grasp.

Goosen may be 46 but he remains a powerful hitter who can fly a lot of trouble on the Old Course with his space-probing tee-shots. “But,” he insists, “it’s mostly my putting which makes the difference.”

The Grand Old Lady’s greens are enormous and – as the Scots put it – full of ’umps and ’ollows and subtle slopes. Picking a line and length needs a lot of “feel”, imagination and darn good detective work. Goosen has shown he has all those credentials. It’ll be