Ernie’s happy hunting ground

Ernie Els will be returning to a happy hunting ground when he tees up to defend his British Open championship over the links of Royal St George’s in Sandwich.

It was here in 1993 that Els, then a fledgling professional, first signaled that he might have what it takes to win major championships when, at the age of 23, he set an Open record that will always stand behind his name.

Playing near the back of the field in that year’s Open, Els putted out for a 68 on the final green and thus became the first golfer ever to beat 70 in every round of a British Open.

A little over an hour later Greg Norman, putting the finishing touches to what will go down as his finest victory, repeated the feat on his way to setting an Open four-round record of 267 but Ernie will ever be the first to return for scores starting with the figure 6.

In a year of exceptionally low scoring Ernie finished tied sixth (with Nick Price and Paul Lawrie) in that championship following his rounds of 68-69-69-68 – 274 and seven strokes adrift of the masterful Norman whose scores of 66-68-69-64 – 267 prompted Nick Faldo to remark that the Australian had “taken golf to a new level.”

Els, with his performance that week, marked himself as a future Open champion; an achievement he finally realised last year when he triumphed at Muirfield in Scotland.

In the intervening years Els has established himself as arguably the finest exponent of links-type golf with the best British Open record of any of his contemporaries.

Whereas he was a rookie in 1993 when the Open was last staged at Royal St George’s, Els has in the past decade established himself as one of the great golfers of any age – to the extent that the Sandwich links where the championship will be staged could almost be described as his “home” Open course.

Set on the coast of Kent an hour-and-a-half’s drive south-east from London, Royal St George’s is within easy reach of Els’ home at Wentworth and he will in all probability drive to the course and back each day.

In preparing for Muirfield last year he and his father, Neels, went to play at Sandwich which means that while Els might not have an intimate knowledge of the lay-out it will be more familiar to him than most.

Although I have never been to Royal St George’s I have an image, from television, of a bleak and desolate place where, according to golf historian Louis Stanley, “gale-force winds sweep across the exposed fairways, where towering sandhills dwarf the player as he makes his way along a dell-like setting. It feels like isolation. There is a remoteness about golf at Sandwich that is unique, an experience never to be forgotten. In a gale only the truly great can hope to succeed on these fairways.”

Els, of course, will be hoping that unlike the last time the Open was held at Royal St George’s the capricious sea breezes will be back because, as his manager Nick Frangos points out, “he is undoubtedly the best player in adverse weather conditions.”

Frangos believes Els possesses not only the imagination to picture the type of shots required in British coastal conditions but also that he is the most adept at pulling off these shots – a contention borne out in last year’s Open when Els, playing in a brutal gale, was able to return an even-par score in the third round while Tiger Woods and the rest of the field were blown away.

The Open will be returning to the Kentish coast for only the fourth time of the modern era, having been brought back there in 1981 after an absence reaching back to Bobby Locke’s first championship victory in 1949.

A narrow road leading to the course over a toll bridge was the difficulty, but the construction of the Sandwich motorway bypass as well as effective one-way traffic flows made it possible to cope with the vast crowds who attend Open championships.

The most recent Royal St George’s champions have been Norman (1993), Sandy Lyle (1985) and American Bill Rogers (1981).