Local Guy Makes Good

Practically playing in his back yard, Ernie Els rediscovers his winning ways and takes seventh World Match Play title

After a quarterfinal match with some shaky putting Els made changes that paid off.

By John Huggan
Photo: Andrew Reddington/Getty Images October 19, 2007

Over the 43 years of its existence and through as many as half a dozen disparate title sponsors from Piccadilly to Colgate to Suntory to Toyota to Cisco to HSBC -- with another on the way -- the World Match Play Championship at Wentworth has been accused of many things, most of them relating to the tournament founder, the late Mark McCormack, packing the field with his own IMG clients.

In truth, Mr. Ten Percent was an easy target, as was his Cleveland-based company's acronym. "IM Greedy" was a popular alternative, as was "International Money Grabbers," with neither barb, of course, by extension doing anything for the World Match Play's standing in the game. "Nice event, good fun, but no integrity," was the widely held view.

But that was then. With a quantifiable and public qualifying system in place nowadays, this long-standing autumnal event has grown in both stature and credibility. Take this year. Of the four semifinalists, only one, Hunter Mahan, pays a percentage of his earnings to IMG, a point worth making in an event offering golf's biggest first prize, a cool £1 million. And even better, eliminating any hint of blatant bias seems to have brought with it a greater diversity, too. Not only were the final four all from different countries, each hailed from a different continent: Ernie Els from Africa, Angel Cabrera from South America, Mahan from North America and Henrik Stenson from Europe.

Such a cosmopolitan lineup has to be commended in a so-called "world" event, even if, with only 16 starters, there remains an air of exhibitionism about the proceedings. And let's not get into the fact that with the arrival of the WGC-Accenture World Match Play Championship that features the planet's best 64 players, the global claim of this event's title is, if one is honest, more than a little dubious.

Still, don't tell any of that to Els, who beat U.S. Open champion Cabrera 6 and 4 in the 36-hole final to trouser that tidy seven-figure sum and, almost incidentally, leap to the top of the European Order of Merit. Far more important to the former U.S. and British Open champion, however, was the simple act of clambering back into the winner's circle for the first time since he lifted the South African Open title last December. For a player of Els' undoubted class, 10 months between victories bring with them much in the way of frustration.

"I need to play more golf like this," he admitted. "When I do, I know I can give anyone a good go. But I wish I could lift Wentworth up and carry it around the world with me.

"This is a very important win for my career. Tiger wasn't in the field, but we had a lot of good players here. So it is satisfying to win again at last. Hopefully, it will open the doors for more of the same next year."

For all that, there will still be those who will quibble over the long-term significance of Els' 24th European Tour victory and his seventh in this event alone. Not only does he have the sort of powerful, high-flying game well suited to the 7,320-yard slog that is Wentworth's West course in typically heavy autumnal conditions, the 37-year-old lives in a rather splendid thatched-roof house adjacent to the 16th fairway and, a couple of years ago, was heavily involved in lengthening more than half the holes as well as adding more than a few bunkers. At the very least, he knows where the trouble is.

None of which has done anything to hurt the chances of the amiable Springbok in an event he has twice won three times in succession. But you still have to putt well to win at this level and, for long enough in his 12th appearance here, Els was doing just the opposite. Hardly pressed against an outclassed Colin Montgomerie in the first round -- the Scot was often as much as 60 yards behind off the tee -- Els struggled on the greens against Andres Romero of Argentina in the quarterfinal and was more than flattered by the 6-and-5 scoreline.

Speaking of which, according to Wentworth's head superintendent Chris Kennedy, Els spent "ages" working on his stroke that evening on the 16th green just outside his front door. Such are the advantages of a real home game.