Crusade of a driven young man

Trevor Immelman’s victory in the Vodacom Players’ Championship at Royal Cape is another step in one of the most single-minded pursuits of sporting excellence yet witnessed in South African sport.

From an age when most of his fellows were more interested in Ninja Turtles and He Man toys, Immelman has been on a quest to follow in the footsteps of Bobby Locke, Gary Player and Ernie Els and become a world-class South African golfer.

It has been a crusade that has involved his father, Johan, and brother, Mark, and that has seen him build up an impressive golfing curriculum vitae for one who will be only 21 this Saturday, December 16.

Hailing from the Cape he was bitten by the golf bug at the age of five when he came into the contact with the game at the Somerset West golf club. He made his first hole-in-one at the age of eight, had broken 80 by the time he was 11 and attracted the mentorship of another Bolander David Frost.

Frost gave him his first professional coaching and set young Immelman firmly on his chosen career path. As a 12-year-old Immelman made his second hole-in-one while playing with Frost at Somerset West while his dedication and endeavour to become good at the game were reminiscent of the ambition that drove Gary Player.

By 1994 he was setting a new record at his home course (seven under par) and this was followed by victory in the SA Junior Masters and the first of many team honours, both junior and senior, that would come his way.

On his first trip to America he won the Wilson Geneva national pee-wee championship, by 11 shots, and in 1995 he proved himself to be among the best in his age-group by taking the under 15 Junior World Golf championship, the under 15 Japan Golf championship and the Zimbabwe junior strokeplay championship.

1995 also brought a landmark victory when he became the first overseas player to win the Rolex Junior Classic in Florida.

As a teenager Immelman had shown that like Nick Price, Ernie Els, Phillip Jonas and Des Terblanche before him he could take on, and beat, the Americans in their own backyard but even then one was struck by his appreciation that junior results would stand for nothing once he became a senior.

At the start of 1996 the American magazine Golf Digest ranked Immelman as the world number two junior and in the same year, at the age of 16 years and three months, he became the youngest player yet selected for a South African men’s senior team.

The following year, 1997, proved to be even more successful. In March he won the SA Amateur championship (matchplay) and also the SA Junior tournament to become the first local golfer to hold both titles simultaneously.

Next he won the individual title in the World Teams Championship in Argentina and proved himself to be one of the best amateurs in the world by being the losing finalist in the British Amateur championship and also notching second place finishes in the Junior World Championship as well as the US Junior amateur championship.

But the best was yet to come as, in 1998, he crowned a stellar amateur career by taking the SA Amateur strokeplay title and the Freddie Tait Cup (low amateur) at the SA Open but also annexing the US Amateur Public Links championship; thus earning a him a spot in the 1999 US Masters at Augusta where he made the cut and placed 56th.

After this all that remained was for Trevor to turn professional and such was his status that he was able to sign up with Mark McCormack’s IMG Group.

Sadly his single-mindedness and determination to rise above the drones was misinterpreted, in some quarters, as arrogance and led to an unhappy episode on last year’s Sunshine Tour when he was forced to forego certain sponsor’s invitations to comply with a PGA rule, but in the months that followed Immelman would show that his was a golfing crusade and not a popularity contest.

Not only did he recover from a bout of meningitis but he joined the Challenge Tour in an effort to win his European Tour card and went out and won the Kenyan Open and, having risen above adversity, also earn that precious card.

Now he has won as a pro. Not just won. He beat a field that included Ernie Els, Darren Clarke, David Frost and Nick Price by three shots and what’s more he went head-to-head with his hero, Els, for 36 holes and outscored him 68, 69 to 71, 69.

Every time Immelman has gone up a rung on the ladder to the top he has shown that he can be winner and it is this quality in his make-up that suggests we are going to be hearing a lot more from him.

Along with the other outstanding prospect from the Cape, Jean Hugo, Immelman will be campaigning on the European Tour next year and it is going to be interesting to see which one of them is first to step onto the winner’s podium.