Ernie Els
Three-time Major Champion Ernie Els will be bidding to win his third World Golf Championship and his 27th European Tour event when he defends his WGC-Cadillac Championship title next week.
Having won the 2004 WGC-American Express Championship, the South African doubled his tally of World Golf Championships 12 months ago when he triumphed at Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami, America, the course known affectionately as the “Blue Monster”.
Els, who won The 2002 Open Championship after a four-man play-off and topped The European Tour Money List in both 2003 and 2004, closed with a round of 66 for an 18 under par aggregate total to win by four strokes from his close friend and fellow European Tour champion Charl Schwartzel.
In the process, Els leapfrogged Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie in The European Tour Career Money List, and he still leads Europe’s 2010 Ryder Cup-winning Captain with total earnings in excess of €25million after reaching the second round of last week’s WGC-Accenture Match Play.
He said: “I’ve obviously got very fond memories of my win at Doral last year, especially as I played in the final round with Charl, who is a very close friend of mine. He actually came and stayed with me at my place in America for a while before the tournament, and we’d joked about how much fun it’d be if we were to go up against one another on the last day – and that’s exactly what happened!
“It was great to go head to head against him – he’s such a great competitor, so I knew it was going to be tough. We’re such good friends so I felt for him a little bit, but he didn’t do much wrong. The key holes were probably the 14th and 15th – that’s where the tournament was really won and lost. I made a great par putt on the 14th, and then on the 15th Charl got a little bit unlucky when his ball plugged in the bunker.
“After he made bogey there, I knew I’d just have to par in to win the tournament, and it took a lot of the pressure off. So in the end it worked out well for me, but he pushed me all the way. I really was on my game that week from the start, especially on the greens, and in the end that probably made the difference.”
The victory was Els’ first on The European Tour since October 2007, when he defeated US Open Champion Angel Cabrera of Argentina in the Final of the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth Club in Surrey, England, and he subsequently went on to win the South African Open Championship in December.
He said: “It was a big relief to get my first win after a bit of a lean spell. People start to doubt you but I never doubted myself, so it was great to get the feel of winning back. I said at the time that winning definitely gets harder as you get older, and there are so many great young players coming through the ranks, it’s only going to get harder still. But I still feel like I’ve got a lot left, and it was great to prove that at Doral last year.”
Despite finishing runner-up Schwartzel, whose victory at the recent Joburg Open took his tally of European Tour titles to six, said he felt privileged to be playing in the final group with a man he had idolised as a youngster and whose swing he had studied and tried to mimic through watching videos.
The 26 year old, currently fourth in The Race to Dubai, said: “Even though it didn’t quite work out for me the way I’d planned in the end, it was still a dream of mine to be able to go head to head with Ernie in the last round of such a big tournament. He played so well that week, and it’s not like I threw the tournament away on the last day. I got a little unlucky on the 15th but other than that I played some very solid golf, so I didn’t have any regrets. Sometimes you’re just beaten by the better guy, and it’s no shame to lose to a great player like Ernie.
“Although I only finished second, it was still a big breakthrough for me because, before that week, probably not many people knew who I was in America. Obviously I’d already won a few times on The European Tour but never managed to play that well in America, so it was great to show people over there what I could do. Hopefully I’ll have another good week in Doral this year. I’m excited about it, because its’ always nice to go back to a course where you’ve played well in the past – it brings back good memories.”
First played in 1999, the $8.5million event will be sponsored for the first time this year by Cadillac. The field is comprised of the top 50 players from the Official World Golf Ranking, top 30 from the previous year’s FedExCup points list, top ten from the current FedExCup points list, top 20 from the previous year’s Race to Dubai, top ten from the current European Tour Race to Dubai, and the top two players from the previous year’s Order of Merits on the Japan Golf Tour, the Australasian Tour, the Sunshine Tour and the Asian Tour.
