Els can stall the President’s man

When all the president’s men tee it up at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club on the shores of Lake Manassas in Virginia’s Prince William Country this week the world of golf will be preoccupied with Tiger Woods and Ernie Els.

The fourth playing of the President’s Cup team championship is not so much about the Americans gaining revenge for the Rest of the World having beaten them convincingly in Melbourne two years ago but about a possible clash between the two best golfers on the globe.

There is no argument about Woods’ No1 status after what he did in the majors in 2000, but South Africa’s Els is demonstrably the second best player in the world.

The President’s Cup provides the opportunity for the two of them to go head to head in the singles on the last day and the opposing captains, Ken Venturi and Peter Thomson, will be under enormous pressure to ensure that Woods and Els are put out at No1 in their respective teams.

In fact, it is almost certain that the television channels will stand for no other match-up and it is a clash Els will relish.

Having come second to Woods in two majors as well as the Mercedes Open and being subjected to endless Press interrogations about the status of Woods, when in fact he was there to talk about his own golf, Els would enjoy the redemption of a moral victory.

And the President’s Cup could not have arrived at a better time for the Big Easy following his exceptional play in the recent Alfred Dunhill Cup at St Andrews.

Although his heroics did not translate into a victory for South Africa as David Frost and Retief Goosen fluffed their lines in the final against Spain, Els emerged from the event as arguably the greatest of the many great players who have bestrode the old links in this unique team competition that has now been discontinued.

Sadly Els missed a tiddler on the final green, when he had already beaten Jose-Maria Olazabal, that would have given him a record five-round total of 339 for the five rounds of strokeplay needed to complete the tournament, but with successive rounds of 68-67-68-69-68 he nevertheless equalled Nick Price’s record set in 1995.

He just missed equalling Greg Norman’s mark of 11 straight victories by finishing the 2000 Dunhill Cup with five wins to go with the four he recorded in 1999 and the one in his last match of 1998 (also against Olazabal) – thus matching Retief Goosen’s run of 10 straight wins in 1997 and 1998.

One record that did fall to Els is for having the most victories in the Alfred Dunhill Cup; an event always held when winter’s chill was starting to bite and the old course was softer and more yielding but, because of inclement weather, no less challenging.

Els made his debut in 1991 and ended up with an impressive 74% win record from 26 wins in 36 matches with one halved. His stroke average was an astonishing 69,45 (also the lowest) to pip Greg Norman (69,61) who held the previous mark of 22 victories.

Els has thus made his way to America in the best possible fettle while Woods has seen no action since the Canadian Open in September. Experience, however, has shown that the American is often at his best when he emerges from hibernation and Venturi and Thomson better see to it that they produce the match everyone is clamouring for – or face a presidential decree!