WHO ELS CAN WIN FOR SOUTH AFRICA? ONE OF THIS FAB FOUR...

IT’S almost a decade now since a South African golfer won a major but that lean run, the longest since the period between Gary Player’s last victory in 1978 and Ernie Els’s first in 1994, surely won’t last much longer. The question is which of the new generation will get to the winner’s post first, to follow in the footsteps of the gilded quintet of Els, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman, Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen. Will it be the brilliant 22-year-old lefty who won two events at a canter on the European Tour last month and then followed up by breezing to his first victory in America on Sunday? Or the wiry 21-year-old with a faster clubhead speed than Bryson DeChambeau? Maybe the 27-year-old who overcame a childhood stutter caused through accidental poisoning when he was two, and an unfair ninemonth ban for beta-blocker use as a teen, when he was taking them legally to overcome anxiety caused by the infant trauma? Then there’s the stylish 31-year-old, if he can just learn to curb the temper that saw him smash a tee box at the last major. They are, respectively, Garrick Higgo, Wilco Nienaber, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Erik Van Rooyen. Technically, these four are right up there with the previous generation.