They call it ”glory’s last shot”, and no one at the PGA Championship understands that better than Ernie Els.
Els has won three tournaments this year and is second in the world rankings, but the Big Easy has had a hard time bagging a major. It’s not that he’s played poorly — or even merely solidly, like that ”slumping” star ahead of him in the rankings, Tiger Woods; no, Els did everything he could do in the first three majors of the year except win.
”Yeah, I feel a little disappointed,” he said on Tuesday after a practice round at Whistling Straits. ”You give so much and you don’t really get a whole lot given back to you. But that’s the game, and I’ve got to live with that.
”In this game, you lose more than you win. You’ve got to take your losses and move on.”
This year, Els has had to move on from one major disappointment to the next.
He finished second at the Masters when perennial runner-up Phil Mickelson birdied the last hole. In the US Open, Els was in the final group in the final round but shot 80. And in the British Open, Els could have won with a 3,6m birdie putt on the 72nd hole that he left short; he lost a four-hole play-off to journeyman Todd Hamilton.
”I guess as long as I play the game, I’ll think about that putt. But, you know, it’s one of those things,” Els said. ”Make that putt, you win the tournament and we’re laughing and smiling. And I miss the putt and I finish second. It is a fine line that we walk on.”
”Maybe I’ll win another one,” he added. ”If you put yourself in that position so many times, you’re doing something right. So, you’ve just got to finish it off a little bit better.”
Even without a major, this has been a pretty good year for the 34-year-old South African. Including his three victories, he has seven top-10 finishes in 12 PGA Tour events and is six-for-six in the top 10 on the world tour while travelling to Thailand, Australia, Dubai, Germany, the United Kingdom and Scotland.
It’s enough to make him forget his major disappointments.
But only for a second.
”A win is a win nowadays,” he said. ”The fields are so strong, if you’re going to win a tournament anywhere in the world, you’ve got to play good golf. But, you know, majors is what you are really after, what I’m really after.
”I’ve felt I’ve played really well [but] I don’t get too much out of it … If I don’t win this week, you know, I’ll still have a good year.”
The numbers bear him out.
He is $1,7-million behind Vijay Singh on the money list with an outside shot of passing the big Fijian, despite playing 12 PGA tournaments to Singh’s 21. And, with a second-place finish this weekend, Els could knock Woods out of the number-one spot in the rankings after a record-tying, 331-week run.
”I’ve been there and it’s a great feeling,” said Els, who was number one for nine weeks in 1997 and 1998. ”But what’s been happening the last four or five years, it would be really great to be up there now in this day and age. … But my real goal this week is to play well and to play as good as I can, and hopefully that will take care of itself.”
Els can move to the top of the rankings if he wins and Woods can’t do better than a three-way tie for second; if he comes in second and Woods finishes no higher than 16th, or if Els is in a two-way tie for second, Woods misses the cut (something he’s never done in a major as a pro) and Singh doesn’t win.
”He’s been playing great all year,” Woods said. ”He has not really changed. He’s been playing this well for a while. I think now he’s able to do it more often in major championships.”
Els has finished in the top 10 of four consecutive majors and six of the past seven; Mickelson, who has gone 1-2-3 so far this year, is the only other player to be working on three straight top 10s. Few golfers have had streaks like that, but Els now has two: in 2000, he finished second in three majors in a row — twice to Woods while he was in the middle of his ”Tiger Slam”.
”It’s always nice to be right there, to get right to the edge of things,” Els said. ”I felt I played better this time. I played well back then, but I just got nailed.”
Els hasn’t come close to winning four consecutive majors, like Woods did in 2000/01, but he has made a career grand slam one of his goals.
He’s halfway there: a win this week would leave only the Masters to complete the trick.
”I’d love to win here, obviously, and then the Masters in April. That would be my Cinderella story,” he said, cracking a smile at the thought. ”And then I can stop.” — Sapa-AP