Els lying low ahead of tourney
WHILE the focus at the Memorial Tournament will be on Tiger Woods, Ernie Els has flown under the radar and hopes to conjure up memories of his win at the PGA Tour event in 2004. Back Page
WHILE the focus at the Memorial Tournament will be on Tiger Woods, who is attempting to defend his title and notch up his fifth victory of the season, South African Ernie Els has flown under the radar and hopes to conjure up memories of his win at the PGA Tour event in 2004.
Els tees off with countryman Charl Schwartzel and Australian Adam Scott in today’s first round at Muirfield Village Golf Club, in Dublin, Ohio, following a sixth-place finish at the BMW PGA Championship European Tour event at Wentworth last week.
“Right now I’m focusing on this week’s Memorial, a tournament I won back in 2004,” Els said on his website. “It’s always been one of my favourite stops on the PGA Tour and it’s one of the best-conditioned courses we play all year. Everything about this tournament is executed beautifully.”
Els said he would aim to keep the momentum going from Wentworth. “The good thing was, I found something in my final round and played a really nice back nine to shoot 67,” he said.
“My swing felt good and the putter warmed up a bit, too. It was nice to finally feel like I was playing decent golf and generating some momentum. Hopefully I can carry that into this week’s Memorial tournament and get some good form going this summer.”
The course has always favoured the long hitters, indicated by Woods’s four previous wins on the layout. The Big Easy said the landing areas on the fairways on the Jack Nicklaus-designed course were quite large, which suited his game.
Length off the tee would then help the approaches into the greens. Nonetheless, Els conceded he would have to putt exceptionally well to have a chance of repeating the victory he secured nine years ago.
“I had one of the best putting weeks of my life when I won in 2004, just 100 putts for four rounds.”
Aside from Schwartzel, the other South Africans in the field are Trevor Immelman, Branden Grace and George Coetzee.
Meanwhile, Jaco van Zyl is delighted to be playing in his first Major tournament earlier than expected. Van Zyl had already qualified for the year’s final Major — the PGA Championship in August — and he said he was pleased that he would be turning out in his first ‘big four’ event in Pennsylvania next month.
The 13-time Sunshine Tour winner made it through sectional qualifying for the US Open in Surrey, England, on Monday. Other South Africans who have qualified are Els, Retief Goosen, Grace, Darren Lloyd, Louis Oosthuizen, Schwartzel and Richard Sterne. Sapa
ERNIE Els flashed that easy smile when he saw a reporter walking towards the clubhouse at the TPC Sawgrass earlier this month.
“This must be great for you guys,” he said. “Come out to the PGA Tour and every week they hand you another story.” And he was not talking about Adam Scott winning the Masters.
Deer antler spray. Rule 33-7. A player cleared of an antidoping violation on a technicality, and then suing his own tour. Players hiring an attorney over a new rule related to the long putter. And this was before the public spat between Sergio Garcia and Tiger Woods took an ugly turn that brought overtures of racism back into golf. “It’s been quite a controversial year for golf,” Lee Westwood said.
Woods has already won four times on the PGA Tour going into the Memorial, a tournament he has won five times. So when someone asked Westwood on Tuesday if there was a sense that the No 1 player was on the verge of going on a big run, he looked mildly perplexed. “I think he’s on one, isn’t he?” he said. “How many tournaments has he played this year? He’s won more than 50%.”
But any talk of Woods is sure to include the illegal drop he took at the Masters, the two-shot penalty he received the next day, the incorrect scorecard with his signature on it and Augusta National invoking Rule 33-7, which gave it discretion to disregard the penalty of disqualification for the incorrect scorecard.
That debate lost steam when Vijay Singh sued the tour the day before The Players Championship began at TPC Sawgrass.
Lawsuits against the tour are rare, but the details of this one were bizarre. “Nobody has ever sued the tour for being cleared of getting a drug violation,” Padraig Harrington said.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) warned against deer antler spray. Singh used it. The tour proposed a six-month suspension. He appealed. Wada said deer antler spray was no longer the same concern. Singh was off the hook. And then he sued the tour.
The good news for PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem was that the lawsuit was largely forgotten three days later. The bad news for the tour was why.
Singh vs PGA Tour felt like an undercard compared with Garcia vs Woods. The Spaniard opened a slanging match that culminated in a racial joke about having Woods over for fried chicken, and he wound up with egg on his face.
Garcia threw out the racial stereotype the same day that the Royal & Ancient Golf Club and US Golf Association introduced Rule 14-1b, effective in 2016, that would ban the anchored stroke used for long putters — like the one Scott used when he won the Masters, or the one Els used at the British Open, and Webb Simpson in the US Open, and the ones used by Tim Clark and Carl Pettersson their entire pro careers.
At least three players, including Scott, have retained a lawyer as they wait to see if the PGA Tour goes along with the new rule.
The tour met with its Player Advisory Council on Tuesday at Muirfield Village, the first step toward figuring out which direction it will go. According to one council member at the meeting, there was passion on both sides.
So much for golf’s reputation as a genteel sport.
“Is it bad for golf?” Nick Watney said on Tuesday afternoon. “It depends on your theory of publicity. If you had the Kardashian feeling that any publicity is good publicity, then it’s good. If you’re a purist in terms of golf, then it’s bad. The lawsuits, the rule change, the little feud going on. My view is that it’s bad.” Sapa-AP