Tough finish for Big Easy
AUGUSTA, Ga. — If this was Ernie Els’ final round at the Masters, he has made peace with the long-ago predictions for success at Augusta National Golf Club that never came true.
The Big Easy completed his 23rd Masters with a 6-over-par 78 in Sunday’s final round, better than the 83 he scored Saturday but still nowhere close to what the 47-year-old four-time major champion still expects out of his game.
He finished at 20 over, dead last in the field and three shots behind 58-year-old Larry Mize. Els’ five-year exemption into the year’s first major for winning the 2012 British Open expired this year. He’ll have to earn his way back through better golf.
Els is content either way, desiring another chance to play amid the Georgia pines but grateful for the 23 years he has had to chase a green jacket.
“This tournament was just not for me,” he said. “I’ve won a lot of events around the world, but this one just eluded me. And that’s fine.”
Els opened strongly with a 72 on Thursday and made the cut for the 17th time with a 75 on Friday, but his game went south after that. Saturday’s score was his highest ever here, and the round included three double bogeys.
First on the course Sunday, he could not muster much of a final-round charge. He had a brief flourish with back-toback birdies on the seventh and eighth holes before his struggles emerged again in the form of consecutive double bogeys on the 13th and 14th.
He said early bird patrons setting up chairs in expectation of an afternoon shootout gave him applause and ovations, a testament to the South African’s Hall of Fame career. If only, he said, he could have done his part on the course.
“The negative was just my play was atrocious,” said Els, who has two wins each in the U.S. Open and the British Open. “That’s the hard part to take.”
Els was a tall, young golfer with a fluid swing when he arrived at Augusta National in 1994. The rookie finished eighth that year, his play touching off predictions of multiple green jackets for a player whose game seemed perfectly matched to Augusta.
His peak at the Masters came in a run from 2000 through 2004 with five consecutive finishes in the top six, including runner-up finishes to Vijay Singh in 2000 and Phil Mickelson in 2004. The onestroke loss to Mickelson, best remembered for Lefty’s celebration leap on No. 18, took something out of Els, who hasn’t finished better than 13th in the tournament since then.
“If I get back, great,” Els said. “It’s obviously not totally out of the picture. But if it is, it is.”