Big two do battle in the heat at Christmas

Caddie's Role: We arrived in George in the western cape province last week for the South African Open which was held at the links course in the exclusive golf resort of Fancourt. It hosted the Presidents Cup two years ago and has been top of the worldwide list of golfing destinations.

The Links is the toughest of the four courses at the resort and is exactly as its name suggests, a links course set underneath the Outeniqua Mountain about five miles from the wild rugged south seas, slightly misplaced but well manufactured.

As a testament to the resemblance of a links course at home, one spectator asked me if the course was in good condition. Because to him as a South African, a good course should be lush green, not bare and bony brown as it was last week. Without a strong wind, and given the firmness of the course, players were hitting drives in excess of 350 metres.

The standing joke in George is that the car number plate from the region means cold and wet. The weather thankfully was warm and dry.

After a long year for the Goosen camp which began in Hawaii in the first week of January, we found ourselves in South Africa in the third week of December battling one of the most demanding courses in the world.

The links had only the matchplay Presidents Cup format as a yardstick for its difficulty, which wasn't much guidance as you can pick your ball up if things are getting out of hand.

A smaller strokeplay event was held last month where the cut was made at 17 over par. The competitors for the South African Open were not filled with confidence at this news.

The Sunshine Tour has been bolstered by combining events with the European Tour. It is also heavily reliant on its world stars - Retief, Ernie Els, Tim Clark and Trevor Immelman - to come home and support them.

Retief took this allegiance a step further by staging an event in his home town of Pietersberg last month where he competed and supported, both physically and financially, on the course where he learned to play golf.

The South African Open became a head to head showdown last Sunday between the world's fourth and fifth best golfers on a course that exposed the weaknesses of the rest of the competition. It was not a coincidence that Retief and Ernie separated themselves from the others by eight shots, two shots a day over four rounds, which is probably a fair indication of the difference in talent.

The final round was as intense as professional golf gets, with plenty ebbs and flows - Retief had a three-shot lead on the first tee but had to hole a four-foot putt on the third to stay ahead.

With both players creating plenty of birdie chances and not really holing a huge amount of putts, subtle breaks on the greens could have changed the leader at each hole.

No matter how good a golfer you are, or how talented you may be, everyone needs luck. Subtle breaks can occur, especially on a links course, to sway the flow of play dramatically.

Ernie got lucky off the 16th tee, finding an open area when his drive barely hopped out of deep rough. He took advantage of his fortune, like all great players do, hitting his approach onto the green and two-putting for a birdie and a tie of the lead.

We had the lead all day long, but were now tied on the 17th. The Outeniqua Mountains didn't look quite so beautiful anymore. The predator, Els, was closing in and it felt like we were about to be savaged, if not by him then by the course itself.

We were about a foot further away from the hole, so it was Retief to play first. The steep bank back up to the green had not been totally shaved of its grass, and there were some fluffy bits that made the bump and run shot more unpredictable.

Retief's ball was lying on a patch of parched earth that was like an Australian cricket association's wicket after the first day of a mid-summer Test series, not exactly where you would choose to play your lob wedge from for fear of either duffing the ball two feet in front of you or sending it screaming back up towards the tee with a big gash in its cover.

This is when you find the true nature of a golfer. Retief flopped his lob wedge onto the green with a delicate flick and it released towards the cup. It hit the meddle of the pin and disappeared into the hole. The crowd roared, Ernie's hat came off, Retief gazed at me in amazement. I responded with a suitably bemused look and we went to the last tee with a one shot lead. Phew.

On the approach to the 18th, Retief landed the ball perfectly on the front of the green but the groan of the crowd told us that the ball had trickled off the back.

Ernie took advantage of his uphill lie, landing his approach on the side of a mound in the middle of the green which stunned the ball towards the hole, leaving it about five feet from the pin.

Apart from the psychological blow of seeing Els' ball beside the hole we had the difficulty of a storm drain between Retief's ball and the pin.

He had to putt his ball perilously close to the drain cover to get it close.

He putted to about two feet, Ernie missed and Retief holed out to claim his second South African Open title. The second oldest trophy in golf.

It really was Christmas, even if it didn't feel like it in 25 degrees of heat in southern Africa.