Ken Borland

Louis Oosthuizen joined the club when it came to South African golfers beaten into second place by Phil Mickelson at a Major championship when the American became the oldest ever golfer to win one of the sport’s four main tournaments with his two-stroke victory in the PGA Championship overnight at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course.

If it wasn’t bad enough having Tiger Woods hogging most of the Majors in the 2000s, winning 12 of them including beating Ernie Els into second place in both the U.S. Open and the Open Championship in 2000, and winning the 2002 Masters by three strokes over Retief Goosen, Mickelson then beat Els by one stroke in the 2004 Masters and Tim Clark by two strokes at Augusta in 2006.

Oosthuizen was just marginally off his game in the final round of the PGA Championship, while his putter remained his most unresponsive club as he posted a one-over-par 73 in the final round to finish tied-second with American multiple Major winner Brooks Koepka. They each earned $1.05 million dollars.

While Mickelson is celebrating his own place in the annals of history as the oldest ever Major winner, Oosthuizen will be mulling over his fifth runners-up finish in the big four tournaments, having claimed the title in the 2010 Open Championship. But the 38-year-old can take some heart from the fact that Mickelson, who turns 51 on June 16, has finished second 11 times in Majors. But the left-hander has also won six Majors – the PGA twice, the Masters three times and the Open Championship once.

“I feel like I’m playing my heart out to get a second major, and I do know I have the game to do it. This was close. My game wasn’t great on the weekend, but it was better today than yesterday. So I just need to work harder on it to get myself in contention again,” Oosthuizen said after his round.

What shaped up as being a famous day in South African golf history, with three golfers in the top six going into the final round, ended as a disappointment, with only Oosthuizen challenging before once again finishing second-best.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout shot a 77 to slip into a tie for 30^th, while Branden Grace was in a tie for 38^th a shot back after a 78.

Danie van Tonder, in his debut Major appearance, shot 73 in the final round to finish tied-44^th, one shot ahead of Rory McIlroy.

Dean Burmester finished tied-59^th and Garrick Higgo, also on Major debut, shot an excellent 69 in the final round to climb to a tie for 64^th.

Branden Grace is back at his most beloved Major, reunited with his coach and back in the top 100 of the world rankings as he looks to lead the 11-strong South African challenge at the PGA Championship starting at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island on Thursday.

Grace has the best history in the tournament of that record South African contingent vying for the famous Wanamaker Trophy, having finished third in 2015 and tied-fourth the following year. Gary Player was the last South African to win the PGA Championship, way back in 1972.

The 32-year-old Grace’s career had been in the doldrums a bit and he lost his father to Covid at the beginning of the year. But Grace rebounded to win the Puerto Rico Open on the U.S. PGA Tour and has made the cut in four of his five events since then, climbing to No.92 in the world rankings, having ended 2020 in 126^th place. He also has his coach Peter Berman with him in South Carolina, and expressed his happiness on social media that they will be able to work together for the first time since last year.

In the golf movie Tin Cup, protagonist Roy McAvoy talks of a course being like a “river full of all manner of disaster, you know, piranhas, alligators, eddies, currents” and the Ocean Course, which was also the venue for the 2012 PGA Championship, has been described as the most difficult layout in recent Major championship history. Measuring nearly 7900 yards, it also features strong coastal winds and cruel slopes.

Hopefully the potential for trauma won’t mar the debut experience of Major golf for South Africans Garrick Higgo, in red-hot form after his two European Tour wins in the Canary Islands, and Danie van Tonder, who has been given an invite after his breakthrough European Tour victory in Kenya.

Louis Oosthuizen is the highest-ranked South African in the field at 31^st in the world rankings, followed by No.41 Christiaan Bezuidenhout. Dylan Frittelli is another South African who regularly competes on the U.S. PGA Tour and is also inside the top-100, while veteran Charl Schwartzel rose 48 places to No.109 after his tied-third finish in last weekend’s Byron Nelson Classic.

Brandon Stone has been doing well on the European Tour lately, while George Coetzee and Erik van Rooyen both enjoyed their best Major showings at the PGA Championship. Dean Burmester, who also won during the European Tour’s Canary Islands swing, is making his PGA Championship debut, having played in two U.S. Opens previously.