Ken Borland

This year’s South African Open may feature a restricted number of leading European stars, but the Sunshine Tour is due to announce today that Ernie Els has committed himself to the country’s national golf tournament for the next few years.

Els is currently cooped up in Herold’s Bay recovering from an ankle injury, but it is believed the four-time major winner has signed a contract with the Sunshine Tour to be the official ambassador for the South African Open, which will also tie him into playing in the tournament over the next few years.

While the 45-year-old Els may be in the autumn of his career, his presence at the SA Open will be a massive boost for the tournament, especially since the other leading campaigners on the European Tour are unlikely to attend.

The SA Open will be held at Glendower Golf Club in Edenvale from January 8-11, a weekend that falls before the European Tour has its lucrative Desert Swing in Abu Dhabi, Doha and Dubai. Many of the top European golfers are expected to merely extend their holidays by a week, rather than travel all the way to South Africa and then back to the Middle East.

All the top South African golfers should be teeing it up at Glendower, however, with the likes of Charl Schwartzel, Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace certainly not minor appurtenances of the tournament. None of that trio has won the SA Open before and all have said how desperate they are to get it on their CVs.

While a victory at Glendower would be a fairytale triumph for any of them, Els will also be hungry for success having not won the title since 2010. If the former world number one does win, it would be his sixth SA Open crown, putting him fourth on the all-time list behind Sid Brews (8), Bobby Locke (9) and Gary Player (13).

Els has already indicated how eager he is to tee it up at Glendower by withdrawing from last weekend’s Thailand Open due to his ankle problem.

“Really sorry @asiantourgolf for withdrawing. Injured my ankle. Can’t take any chances. Want to be ready for @Sunshine_Tour SA Open in Jan,” Els tweeted.

Ernie Els introduced his own channel on the YouTube website just over a year ago to signal that he is keeping up with the modern age but, even more importantly, the Big Easy showed that he is not a golfing hero of a bygone time when he won the Open Championship in July to provide one of the South African sporting highlights of the year.

Els’s one-shot victory at Royal Lytham was his fourth major title and it came at a time when most observers felt the 43-year-old would not win one of golf’s big four tournaments ever again. Apart from knee injuries and his increasing involvement in charities dealing with autism, which his 10-year-old son Ben suffers from, Els seemed to lack the mental toughness required to clinch victory in the most pressured sporting environment imaginable ever since he triple-bogeyed the 18^th hole at Leopard Creek when leading the Alfred Dunhill Championship by two strokes in 2007.

But Els showed wonderful composure on the back nine in the final round at the tight, famous old links course, the same venue where he finished second in 1996 and third in 2001.

When Els finished his round with his fourth birdie on the second nine holes, overnight leader Adam Scott was still three shots ahead, but the Australian suffered a woeful collapse in the next 20 minutes, bogeying the last four holes to give the South African his second Open title.

Shaky putting had been one of the prime reasons why Els had failed to win a major for 10 years and any tournament for two, but this year he turned to a belly putter and Sherylle Calder, the vision specialist who helped both England’s (2003) and South Africa’s (2007) Rugby World Cup-winning teams, for help and it worked.

Back in April, Louis Oosthuizen was chasing his own major title at the Masters in Augusta and, if he had managed to beat Bubba Watson in a playoff, South Africa would have had two major wins in a year for the first time since Gary Player won the Masters and the Open in 1974.

Oosthuizen was actually two ahead with five holes to play, but just failed to weather a tremendous finish by the wacky Watson, who birdied four successive holes from the 13^th. That brought him level with the 2010 Open champion and into a playoff.

Watson then had to overcome a wild drive into the trees on the second playoff hole and did it with one of the best shots ever seen at a major, a miraculous snap-hook on to the green that allowed him to save par, while Oosthuizen was short of the green after also finding trouble off the tee.

Oosthuizen would go on to reach the top 10 in the world rankings for the first time as he finished third on the European Tour’s order of merit, winning the Africa and Malaysian opens along the way.

South Africa’s other recent major winner, Charl Schwartzel, would sadly go backwards as he battled a niggling rib muscle injury, before ending the year on a high with overwhelming victories at the Thailand Golf Championship and then the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek.

Hot on their heels was fellow South African Branden Grace, who won four European Tour events in 2012 and also won the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit.

The other major winners were American Webb Simpson in the US Open and Rory McIlroy in the PGA Championship, the young Northern Irishman going on to successfully chase down the world number one ranking as well as winning both the US PGA and European money-lists.

While there is a maze of possibilities when it comes to the winners of golf majors, tennis was once again dominated by Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer on the men’s side, although Andy Murray joined that all-powerful trio when he finally broke his Grand Slam duck by winning the US Open. He also claimed the Olympic gold medal as he ended years of frustration at Wimbledon.

Djokovic beat Nadal to win the Australian Open, which went into the history books as the longest Grand Slam final, the Serbian triumphing 5-7 6-4 6-2 6-7 7-5 in an epic match that lasted five hours, 53 minutes.

Djokovic would go on to end the year as the number one ranked men’s player and win the ITF’s Player of the Year award, but he lost two other Grand Slam finals in 2012 as Nadal claimed a seventh French Open crown and Murray beat him at Flushing Meadow.

Federer, meanwhile, beat Murray in the Wimbledon final to claim his seventh crown at the London grasscourts – nobody has won more.

The women’s tennis circuit was more of a one-horse race as Serena Williams dominated the second half of the year, winning both the Wimbledon and US Open titles and claiming Olympics gold in both the singles and doubles events, with sister Venus.

Victoria Azarenka had begun the year by thrashing Maria Sharapova in the Australian Open final to become the new world number one, but her period of dominance was no more than an illusion as Sharapova completed her career Grand Slam by winning the French Open and regaining the top ranking.

One sportsperson who is clearly most capable of dominating his sport for many years to come is Formula One champion Sebastian Vettel.

The German won five F1 races this year to claim the overall title for the third successive time and, at just 25 years old, he is the youngest racing driver to win three championships.

Vettel did enough in the final race of the season, in the rain in Sao Paulo, to claim the title with a sixth-place finish. But the Red Bull racer had to come from the back of the field to do it and had to wait until Jenson Button beat title challenger Fernando Alonso into second place by two seconds in a thrilling finish to celebrate the overall crown.

But the award for the most exciting sporting event of the year must go to the Ryder Cup golf and Europe’s phenomenal comeback to beat the United States 14 ½ – 13 ½.

But they needed the greatest comeback in Ryder Cup history to do it, winning eight of the 12 singles matches on the final day to rebound from a 4-10 deficit. It all came down to the last two matches, with Martin Kaymer beating Steve Stricker on the final hole and Francesco Molinari halving with Tiger Woods, who bogeyed the 18^th.

Victorious European captain José Maria Olazabal said: “To the 12 men of Europe, what you did out there was outstanding. All men die, but not all men live, and you made me feel alive again this week.

“I don’t know how heaven feels, but it must be close to this.”

– http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-12-18-sports-year-in-review-the-best-of-the-rest

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Ernie Els will not be coming to Sun City this year to play in the Nedbank Golf Challenge as the four-time major winner continues to pick and choose when and where he plays in South Africa.

While Els – a former world number one and a truly global superstar who was voted on to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2010 – has every right to do so, he has for several years displayed a reluctance to treat his passionate South African fans with the same commitment as he brings to the European and PGA (American) tours.

Since 2007, when Els arrived at the 18^th hole of the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek with a two-shot lead over journeyman Englishman John Bickerton and promptly deposited two balls into the water surrounding the island green to register a triple-bogey 8, the Big Easy has only appeared in five tournaments in five years on South African soil.

And even in those five tournaments, he has seemed a reluctant participant, his relations with the media – who in the most part are fawning much like the public – has been mediocre, with Els behaving more like a wounded old buffalo bull on the banks of the Crocodile River fringing Leopard Creek than one of South Africa’s greatest sporting heroes.

Nedbank Golf Challenge tournament director Alastair Roper on Thursday put a brave face on the absence of probably the tournament’s greatest drawcard, especially since his astonishing victory in this year’s Open Championship has revitalised a career that seemed to be rapidly tailing off.

“Obviously as one of this year’s major winners, Ernie received an automatic invite and he was sent that immediately after the Open. In August I met with his management company and they indicated that he was finding it difficult to come back to South Africa this early in the year. He wants to spend time with the family and his kids, who will still be in school. They only break up around December 22 and he doesn’t want to take them out early,” Roper said.

Most of the South African media, used to the way Els treats them with disdain while fully living up to his nickname with the scribes on the European and PGA tours, are not buying the excuse.

Last year, Els was a noticeable absentee from Sun City for only the third time in 20 years because his form had not been good enough to earn an invitation. The Nedbank Golf Challenge sends invites to the defending champion, the four major winners – unfortunately none of them have accepted this year – and then according to the world rankings, the cut-off date this year being September 23. The winner of the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit is also guaranteed entry.

Els, who had dropped to 45^th in the world in September 2011 when the field was decided upon, was reported as being less than pleased to have not been invited to Sun City, where he has won on three occasions and is a firm crowd favourite.

While he may be giving a figurative “up yours” and getting some payback against Roper and his team this year, he is also, at a stage in his career when twilight is surely approaching, alienating his most loyal supporters which can never be advisable, especially for somebody who is now trying to drum up charitable support for research into autism, which his son, Ben, suffers from.

While Els’s absence will undoubtedly affect the gate at Sun City, it won’t make much of a difference. As Kevin Pietersen and Quade Cooper have recently learnt, and many more before them, no one is bigger than their sport and 95% of the people smashing kegs of beer in their faces when Els is there will be back again.

“There’s no doubt that Ernie’s absence last year was part of the reason we had two or three thousand fewer people,” Roper said. “But the weather also did not help the attendance. In 2011 we had 62 000 spectators, while in the previous year we had 65 000,” Roper said.

So Sun City are losing 5% of their crowd by not having Els there. But the Big Easy is surely losing way more than that in terms of his own personal brand on his home turf.

While Els, currently number 22 on the world rankings, will be missed, there is plenty of quality in the field.

Ironically, it is the player at the bottom in terms of world rankings who might become the new crowd favourite.

Nicolas Colsaerts, who made a sensational Ryder Cup debut with a 62 in the opening day fourballs, was the last player to be invited at 35^th in the rankings, but Roper seemed ready to drop a couple of rand on the Belgian.

“Colsaerts is so long off the tees. If his driver is working and he’s in the middle of the fairways most of the time, then he’ll definitely be a challenger,” Roper said.

Members of Europe’s Ryder Cup team who won their biennial tournament against the United States against all odds three weeks ago make up nearly 60% of the field with Lee Westwood the obvious favourite once again.

Westwood is looking to go one better than the back-to-back titles of Seve Ballesteros (1983-84), David Frost (1989-90), Nick Price (1997-98), Els (1999-2000) and Jim Furyk (2005-06) in becoming the first golfer to win three successive titles, but the recent form of fellow Englishman Justin Rose, who was born and lived in Johannesburg until he was five, suggests he faces the stiffest of challenges.

The recent form of Louis Oosthuizen, the leading South African in the field, will raise the hopes of local fans, while the presence of 2011 Masters champion Charl Schwartzel and Sunshine Tour Order of Merit winner Garth Mulroy should also help make up for the absence of Els.

NGC field (with current world ranking) – Lee Westwood (England, 4); Justin Rose (England, 5); Louis Oosthuizen (South Africa, 12); Peter Hanson (Sweden, 25); Paul Lawrie (Scotland, 29); Francesco Molinari (Italy, 30); Charl Schwartzel (South Africa, 31); Carl Pettersson (Sweden, 32); Martin Kaymer (Germany, 33); Bill Haas (USA, 34); Nicolas Colsaerts (Belgium, 35); Garth Mulroy (South Africa, 172).

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Lee Westwood will be returning for an attempt at an unprecedented hat-trick of titles, but Ernie Els has decided not to accept his invitation to this year’s Nedbank Golf Challenge, Sun International announced on Thursday.

While Westwood leapt at the opportunity to try and become the first golfer to win at Sun City for three successive years, returning to the Gary Player Country Club for the ninth time, local favourite Els will not be participating in the 32^nd edition of the tournament, from November 29 to December 2.

Tournament Director Alastair Roper said while it was unfortunate the resurgent Open champion would not be playing, Els had his reasons.

“Obviously as one of this year’s major winners, Ernie received an automatic invite and he was sent that immediately after the Open. In August I met with his management company and they indicated that he was finding it difficult to come back to South Africa this early in the year. He wants to spend time with the family and his kids, who will still be in school. They only break up around December 22 and he doesn’t want to take them out early,” Roper explained at the field announcement in Sandton on Thursday.

Westwood, meanwhile, the highest-ranked player in the field at number four, has apparently committed himself to becoming a regular contestant in the NGC.

“His manager, Chubby Chandler, told me that Lee has made up his mind to play at Sun City in perpetuity. He loves the course, he considers it his backyard and he doesn’t care who comes along, he believes he can beat them there. He’s been pretty unstoppable at Sun City before,” Roper said.

Invitations are sent to the defending champion, the four major winners – unfortunately none of them have accepted this year – and then according to the world rankings, the cut-off date this year being September 23. The winner of the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit (Garth Mulroy) is also guaranteed entry.

This year the invitations went as far down as world number 35 Nicolas Colsaerts, with three South Africans (Mulroy, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel) and seven members of Europe’s triumphant Ryder Cup team cracking the nod.

Europe snatched victory from the United States on a dramatic final day at Medinah, with Justin Rose and Martin Kaymer playing key roles, while Colsaerts made a sensational Ryder Cup debut by shooting 62 as he and Westwood beat Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker in the opening day’s fourballs. Roper believes the NGC can only benefit from the hype.

“It was a marvellous Ryder Cup and Europe’s magnificent win bodes well for us because it means all those golfers are on top of their game. They will be confident and the memories from Medinah will still be fresh in the public’s mind,” Roper said.

While Westwood, who won by a mammoth eight strokes in 2010 and by two shots over Robert Karlsson last year, is the clear favourite, world number five Rose has been in excellent recent form and loves playing in the country of his birth, having narrowly missed out on the NGC title in 2007, when he was just edged into second by Trevor Immelman.

“I think there will be real pressure on Westwood. Justin Rose is really hot at the moment, being in South Africa suits him, he has one foot here and he will feel totally at home. But Louis Oosthuizen is also in great form, he’s had a stellar second half of the year and he will certainly compete with them. Plus Colsaerts is so long off the tees that if his driver is working and he’s in the middle of the fairways, he’ll be a challenger too,” Roper said.

But South Africa’s most in-form golfer, Branden Grace, will not be in the field because he was too far down the world rankings at the September 23 cut-off.

“He wasn’t even in the top 50 when we made the cut-off, but he won just after that which pushed him up the rankings. But even at his current number 37 in the world, he wouldn’t have got in,” Roper explained.

NGC field (with current world ranking) – Lee Westwood (England, 4); Justin Rose (England, 5); Louis Oosthuizen (South Africa, 12); Peter Hanson (Sweden, 25); Paul Lawrie (Scotland, 29); Francesco Molinari (Italy, 30); Charl Schwartzel (South Africa, 31); Carl Pettersson (Sweden, 32); Martin Kaymer (Germany, 33); Bill Haas (USA, 34); Nicolas Colsaerts (Belgium, 35); Garth Mulroy (South Africa, 172).