Golfing gods smile again on one of the greats

CADDIES' ROLE:Ernie Els rediscovered his old putting touch for one of the most remarkable comebacks, writes COLIN BYRNE

FORTY TWO isn’t exactly old these days but it is October for most professional golfers if you look at their career as a 12-month cycle. Ernie Els was looking like a giant of the game dwarfed by an indifferent short game in latter years. He changed caddies, management groups, residences and a lot of putters but nothing seemed to reignite the form that came so naturally to him in his hay-day.

Ernie was one of the big five in more ways than one. Given his large and athletic stature he always had a big presence. Still the same size, he didn’t appear to occupy as much space as he did half a decade ago when he used to win global events for fun.

I pulled up alongside him in the car park at the Scottish Open early on the morning of the first round two weeks ago. He was sitting in his car, his ever-present wife beside him in the passenger seat. They waited patiently as his caddie, Rickie Roberts – reinstated as porter for about the fifth time now – arranged his golf bag in the boot of the Range Rover. He didn’t really cut the figure of a force to be feared. The car was surrounded by puddles and pot-holes, not autograph hunters. He looked like someone making up the numbers at a golf tournament, not a real contender.

He didn’t arrive in Inverness airport in his private G-5 airplane but demoted himself to an easyJet standard seat without the much needed extra leg room.

Times, indeed, seemed to have changed for the big South African legend. The trouble was the flat stick. The hole had become smaller as the years progressed for the Big Easy. Of course he still hit the ball as sweetly as ever; how could you not with such a rhythmical and graceful swing combined with inexorable talent?

But Ernie lost his rhythm with the putter. Like with all great putters it is almost impossible to take when you turn into an extremely average one. This is what makes you great, what sets you aside from the herd: you hole putts when it matters, you know it and the rest of the field knows it. Ernie Els was not missing anything makeable, especially when seemingly under immense pressure.

This mantra gradually reversed to Ernie ain’t making anything unless it’s well inside the putter-grip length, especially when under the cosh.

The reality of this for someone who probably never considered living life as anything other than a reliable putter, particularly when most golfer’s sphincters were twitching uncontrollably under perceived pressure, must be impossible to accept.

There are countless good ball strikers who have graced the fairways who rejoiced on the odd week they happened to putt well. That wasn’t E Els. He was royalty with the flat stick, he was the prince, if not the king; it was his birth right to hole putts at the crucial stage of a golf tournament.

The irony of Ernie’s second Claret Jug was it was one of the paupers of professional putting who handed the silver trophy to an almost stunned Els. If anyone could empathise with a dodgy putter it was the post-40-year-old South African.

Both of them have resorted to the controversial long putters. Els could not have felt Scott’s pain 10 years ago because he didn’t understand just how bad tentative putting can make you feel. Both Ernie and Adam are the type of “flushers” in the game who make a special crisp, clicking sound when their iron strikes their ball. They could easily hit a three-iron to within 15 feet of the hole with regularity and miss the hole by a foot with the attempted putt.

I have frequently mentioned the golfing gods and how they mystically wield power over the outcome of events that somehow rebalances the moral equilibrium to an often heart-breaking game. I really thought the gods were finally rewarding Adam Scott, one of golf’s genuine gentlemen who is always a pleasure to watch from an aesthetic perspective and because of his nature, the ideal playing partner.

As I followed the final round of the 141st Open Championship I truly believed the gods had chosen Adam as their champion of Royal Lytham and St Annes for the simple reason his realistic contenders totally capitulated early on in the round and never put an ounce of pressure on the Australian. Thankfully he didn’t have to make putts; he just needed to do what comes naturally to him; hit fairways and greens.

As everyone else fluttered in the stiffest prevailing wind of the week, the flusher Scott was flushing and two-putting his way seemingly to his first Major victory. But someone else was getting the gods’ attention. A former super star who has learnt humility the hard way in a game he held in the palm of his mighty hands for over a decade.

Ernie could have been forgiven for ending his professional torture on the greens over that past few years and bowing out gracefully. But he didn’t give in, he kept believing and despite his crippling putting he had hoped that one day he would regain his rightful regal stature in the game.

It happened on the back nine in Royal Lytham last Sunday.

The golfing gods swayed their mighty power away from Adam Scott. I mean how many contenders could they take out; at some stage Scott was going to have to take control and hole at least one makeable putt. You have to in order to attain greatness in this game.

Adam Scott is in the June of his calendar golfing cycle. He has a long summer ahead of him and he will be rewarded some month soon. Just like Ernie Els has been in the autumn of his career. Ernie once again fills a space in world golf befitting his psychical stature.