Els turns back clock at British Open.
Els surges to victory after Scott collapses — just like his idol
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LYTHAM ST.ANNES,
ENGLAND – Ladies and gentlemen, the survivor of the 2012 Open Championship was Ernie Els.
The winner, though, was no human, it was a thing: a claustrophobic, confounding, discombobulating and largely disrespected golf course, Royal Lytham & St. Annes, that needed only a modest breeze Sunday to turn the world’s best players into objects of derision and pity.
Most of the latter was reserved for Adam Scott, who joined his lifelong idol, Greg Norman, in the annals of Australian sporting heartbreak Sunday by blowing a four-stroke lead with four holes to play and failing to even get into a playoff — a collapse more sudden, but no less devastating, than Norman’s final-round self-immolation against Nick Faldo at the 1996 Masters.
Even in victory, Els — who was six strokes back after the front nine and made four birdies coming in — could not accept a word of congratulation without first acknowledging his sorrow for the 32-yearold Scott, who had been poised all day, if not all week, to win his long-awaited first major championship.
“I’m kind of numb right now — I was just hoping for a playoff. I was standing on the putting green, and I didn’t see what happened. I only heard it,” Els said, not more than a couple of minutes after Scott swung his broomstick putter and slightly pulled a 10-foot par putt wide of the hole, leaving the patrons who jammed the grandstands flanking the 18th green in stunned disbelief.
Scott stood aside, watching his playing competitor, Graeme McDowell, hole out, mouthing the word “Wow’’ and shaking his head, the very picture of bewilderment.
Els’s closing 68, for an immensely popular winner with a gentle demeanour that had withstood the trials and tribulations of 10 years without adding to his collection of three major titles, may never be fully appreciated, much as Faldo’s final-round 67 was largely overshadowed by Norman’s 76 at Augusta.
That day was one of the saddest of a young Adam Scott’s life, as he watched Norman’s humi l iation through the tears of a devoted 15-year-old.
Now, he has a sadder one, though he hadn’t fully come to grips with it when he spoke after the round in his trademark, impassive monotone.
“Well, look, it may not have sunk in yet. Maybe there will be a bit more disappointment when I get home and kind of wind down. I feel like I’ve just walked off the golf course, and it’s a lot to digest,” Scott said.
“I mean, Greg was my hero when I was a kid, and I thought he was a great role model, how he handled himself in victory and defeat. It’s tough, you don’t want to sit here and have to ... I can’t justify anything that I’ve done out there. I didn’t finish the tournament well today. But I’m sure there will be a next time, and I can do a better job of it.”
Els had shown all the signs of nearing the end of his major-competitive prime, but he said all week he had a feeling that he was on the verge of something great — an improbable premonition that immediately goes into the books alongside the feeling U.S. captain Ben Crenshaw had the night before the singles matches in the 1999 Ryder Cup: the finger-wagging, stammering feeling, which hardly anyone believed, that his team would stage an historic comeback the next day.
“It’s hard to explain, for some reason I just felt something good was going to come out of this. But still, you know, to make up all those shots ...,” said the 42-year-old South African, who said he may have to miss a golf day for Mike Weir on Monday in Toronto, but has no intention of missing the RBC Canadian Open at Hamilton Golf and Country Club, which starts on Thursday.
“But I really feel for my buddy Scotty, I really do. I’ve been there, I’ve blown majors before, and I just hope he doesn’t take it as hard as I did. Thankfully, he’s young enough. He’s 32, he’s got the next 10 years to win more than I have. I’ve won four now, I think he can win more than that.”
For most of Sunday, Els was just part of the stage furniture with all of the other quasichallengers. Scott began the day four strokes ahead of the pack, and he was still four ahead after rolling in a 20-foot birdie putt at the 14th because, despite dropping two earlier shots to par, everyone else was leaking oil like an armada of Liberian tankers.
Tiger Woods self-destructed when he took triple bogey from a fried-egg lie in the sod-walled bunker right of the sixth green, with two impossible sand shots and a sloppy three-putt. Mcdowell gradually unravelled, then snipe-hooked an ill-advised go-for-broke attempt to reach the unreachable 11th hole, over the gallery’s head and into a shrub.
Brandt Snedeker, who went his first 40 holes without hitting into a bunker, found them with regularity Sunday and made back-to-back double bogeys at the 7th and 8th holes to snuff his chances.
The five players nearest to the lead when the day began — Snedeker, Mcdowell, Woods, Els and Zach Johnson — played the final round in a combined 15 over par.
Welcome back, Big Easy. It’s been way too long.