Ernie Els: A Pattern of Enduring Excellence at The Open

This Chronicles Unseen long-form article can be viewed in full on the oneclub.golf website. Enjoy a teaser below.

When Ernie Els finished tied-fifth at The 121st Open, in only his second appearance at golf’s original Championship, he knew he had achieved a result of great significance.

However, there was no way the South African could have realised he had written the first chapter in a curiously cyclical tale, beginning a theme that would repeat at 10-year intervals during his glorious, trophy-laden career.

This is the story of Els and the respective Open Championships of 1992, 2002 and 2012, three tournaments – each a decade apart – that have had an enormous and lasting impact on one of golf’s most popular players.

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Aged 22, Els was a young man tipped for greatness when he arrived at Muirfield in 1992 for a Championship he would describe more than two decades later as “the opening of the door for me to where I’m sitting today”. He soon showed why he was rated so highly.

Despite the fact he had only one previous major appearance to his name, having missed the cut as an amateur in The 118th Open at Royal Troon, Els was among the front-runners all week and performed admirably to finish in a tie for fifth. He also appeared totally at ease with the conditions, in sharp contrast to the struggles many players endure when initially familiarising themselves with coastline golf.

More than 5,000 miles away from his native Johannesburg, he was already aware the links courses of the United Kingdom represented a golfing environment that suited him like no other.

“I can’t really put my finger on it. I don’t know why I got so comfortable on links courses,” Els said.

“It goes back to watching on television, you know, seeing the way the guys were swinging the club and hitting the shots, seeing the dust fly up. There are no divots flying through the air, just dust and stuff.

“And playing links golf at an early age [probably helped]. The South African Golf Federation at that time used to send players over to the British Isles. I played at the British Amateur and I played the English Amateur and so on, and I played on great courses.

“For some reason, whenever I stepped onto a links land course, and even today, I feel like I hit the ball more solidly than I do on a parkland course. For some unknown reason that’s just stayed with me for my career. It’s just a love of playing on that kind of land.

“I’ve played hundreds of rounds around links courses and I still have that feeling when I walk on the first at St Andrews or Birkdale or whatever,” he added. “I put that tee in the ground and hit my tee shot, my swing just feels different and I feel like I’m really hitting the ball solidly.

“It’s got to have something to do with the turf that we’re playing off and the kind of golf that you have to play. I found it very natural to myself to play punch shots, little cut shots in the wind, or low shots and different kind of shots, so that’s natural to my game.”