The Big Easy Ernie Els still aiming big

It is often said that life begins at 40, though I've never really been convinced .Actually I've always suspected it was a convenient cliché invented to soften the crushing blow otherwise known as the ageing process. However, there are always exceptions and it does indeed seem that this tired old adage has some resonance for Ernie Els. Having reached this landmark age last October, his life does seem to have entered a new chapter; one of calm, contentment and tournament wins.

Ernie's convincing win at the WGC/CA Championship at Doral was his second World Golf Championship triumph and it could not have come at a better time for him. A couple of wins had slipped through his fingers in the previous 12 months and he admits he needed to get the job done. “Yeah, that win definitely meant a lot to me,” says Ernie. “No one puts more pressure on me than I do myself and I needed to prove something to myself out there, so to shoot a bogey-free 66 in the final round felt great. I was very calm, very confident. It was like I used to feel when I was winning a bunch of tournaments earlier in my career.”

It looked like the Ernie from his earlier career, too. He had that calm swagger of a man untroubled by the situation, his whole body language and facial expressions suggesting a man totally comfortable in what he was doing. He got the job done all right and it was the sort of nerveless display we used to see a lot from Ernie.

Ernie then followed that up with a win in his next tournament, the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. That Sunday afternoon he was cruising, holding a five-shot lead as he stepped on to the 13th tee. “I thought it was going to be even easier than Doral,” he later admitted. Just 30minutes later he'd dropped three shots and play had been abandoned due to rain, giving Ernie a sleepless night to contemplate his situation. “I wasn't really the Big Easy that night,” he joked.

The next morning he showed again that he has rediscovered his winning habit. His play over the final four holes wasn't textbook golf, but on one of the toughest closing stretches on the PGA Tour, he ground out four straight pars to win by two shots. “That showed me that I still have a lot of fight,” said Ernie. “When it mattered most I got the ball up and down and made some really good putts under pressure, so that's going to help me in the future.”

Back-to-back wins are special in anyone's book and it is certainly no exaggeration to say that the decision to set up a family base in West Palm Beach has helped re-energise Ernie. Ironically, the move was initiated in no small way through personal hardship, specifically the diagnosis of their son Ben with autism and the pressing need as loving parents to find the best possible way of life for his education and personal development.

“Autism hits the whole family hard,” says Ernie. “For a long time you are trying to figure out ‘what just happened to my life?' You feel sorry for yourself and for your kid and for your family.And the tragedy is that even in this day and age, the kid who has autism is often forgotten about. The feeling is that he's almost a waste of time, which says a lot more about society than it does the child.”

Seeing the difficulties that families on the autism spectrum were experiencing is what prompted Ernie and his wife, Liezl, to set-up the Els for Autism Foundation to help fund research into finding a cure for the condition. “One in 150 children is affected by autism and that was one of the most shocking things about all of this,” commented Ernie. “There's so much about it that isn't fully understood and that's why Liezl and I became involved. We are in the public eye, which gives us a platform to help raise funds and awareness for the causes of autism.”

In 2009 Ernie and Liezl embarked on a capital campaign to raise $30 million to fund a Centre of Excellence in Palm Beach, Florida. The centre will be the first of its kind in the world, combining cutting-edge education, therapy and research for children in the autism spectrum. It will have a global reach, assisting individuals and families all over the world, and also help connect the international autism community with best practices and the latest information and research. “It's a great feeling to know that this centre is going to become a reality,” says Ernie. “The rest of my life I'll be fighting this thing.”

The move to America also triggered a change in Ernie's playing schedule, which this year is very much more focused on the PGA Tour and by definition involves far less travelling especially in the first half of the season. “Before it was easy for me to start the year in the Middle East because it's closer to South Africa, but ever since we made this move to Florida it's more difficult to play an international schedule. Liezl and I have been talking about this for a couple of years now. I wouldn't change the way I've done things in the past, but yeah, I feel like my formula is good now. We're very settled with our base in America. I haven't travelled that much this year and that's helped me stay a bit fresher than I have been in the past couple of seasons. All in all, I feel really good mentally.”

The physical side of Ernie's game isn't looking too shabby, either. In fact, it's probably as good as it's been since before his six-month layoff for knee surgery in the summer of 2005. It took properly two years to fully recover from that and, contrary to some reports in the media, Ernie worked extremely hard on his rehab. I was there to witness many of his physio and gym sessions; believe me it was painful to watch, let alone be subjected to.

Still, for the last couple of years, despite the occasional win such as in the Honda Classic in the spring of 2008, Ernie was fighting his game somewhat. But this season he looks right in the groove and the rhythm of his swing is back to its sublime best. Leading up to his win at Doral, Ernie confessed that he went “back to the drawing board” and focused on the fundamentals, which have been such a solid feature of his elegant game. “When I hit the ball badly it's nearly always because my basics have got out of whack,” he explains. “When I get the ball position, alignment and posture right, everything tends to slot into place and I can hit the ball how I want to and flight my shots properly.”

Els wasn't afraid to admit that a mid-March practice round in Florida with fellow ISM stablemate Lee Westwood also helped push a few buttons technique-wise. “Lee was hitting it great and his ball flight was very strong,” recalls Ernie. “It made me think about a couple of things in my own game,mainly in my set-up, although I didn't say anything to Lee at the time!”

For the following week Ernie hit balls until it got dark and gradually things started to click into place. By the time he hooked up with Butch Harmon just before Doral, it was not for any significant new revelations but merely to confirm what he already had in mind. “I've been playing this game long enough now that I should be able to figure things out for myself,” says Ernie.

The way Ernie swings the club it was hard to see his ball striking not coming back, but his putting was more of a concern. His form on the greens had looked shaky for a while and, as is the way when searching for a solution at such times, Ernie went through a phase of tinkering with his technique and swapping putters. “That's just the game,” says Ernie. “You change your putter, then you change your technique a little bit and before you know it you're all over the place.”

In the end, as was the case with his full swing, he looked to the past for a way forward. “I basically went back to putting the way I did when I was in my 20s,” he says. “I sorted out my basics, chopped an inch-and-a-half off the shaft of my putter to sort out my posture, and started to rock my shoulders more to control the length and pace of my stroke. Things pretty soon started to feel more comfortable and now I really feel like I've turned it around.”

Also, the new rules on grooves seem to play into the soft hands of golfers like Ernie,who grew up in an era when less backspin placed more emphasis on imagination, variety and feel. The new spec wedges combined with Callaway's softer Tour (i)s golf ball are a happy marriage and Ernie's short game is back to its sharp best. “I feel like I can have a really good year, which is why I'm working so hard on getting my mechanics right. Mentally I'm in a good place and if you get the mind and body working together you can get some good stuff happening.”

Thanks to the Florida move, Ernie is able to spend more time at home with the family and he also has more time to work on his game. In fact, he's working harder than he has for many a year. The superb Bear's Club is on his door step and the temperate Florida climate meant that throughout the first three months of this year the weather never scuppered his plans in the way it often would when he was spending time off at Wentworth between tournaments. Of course he has an eye on the majors and although Ernie is too much of a wily campaigner to make bold predictions, he is relishing the prospect of revisiting each of the host venues in 2010. They certainly fit with Ernie's game and give him good reason to go in with a positive vibe.

“I love going to St. Andrews; it's almost like a second home tome,” says Ernie who plays there every year with his dad in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. “They've given me my same room at theOld Course Hotel for the last 15 years and that's almost like a bit of a tradition for us and we feel very comfortable there. Whistling Straits is also a great venue and I played well there in the PGA a few years back. Then obviously Pebble Beach is wonderful, I think one of the most beautiful courses that have ever been built. I'm looking forward to going back to all of those golf courses and I feel like I can do well again.”

With three majors already in the bag, plus two World Golf Championship events and more than 60 professional victories around the world, it is baffling that Ernie is considered by some to be an under-achiever. It's a point that gets presented to Ernie, often not so subtly at press conferences, and he patiently straight-bats the argument. “I can't complain about the way my career has gone,” he says. “I mean, where I started in South Africa as a junior, it's a very long road from there to where I am today. Obviously you are always going to have tournaments that slip away and that's the nature of the game of golf. But you know, I've criticised myself so much in the past and I don't want to do that anymore. If I look at the whole picture I don't think I've had a bad career. To win over 60 events around the world and three majors, that is pretty cool.”

There's plenty of time to add to that tally, as well. Not wishing to labour the life begins at 40 cliché it is true to say that it really is no age for a professional golfer in these modern times. Vijay Singh has won more tournaments after 40 than he won before that age. Kenny Perry's career got a turbo boost when he turned 40. And going back further in time, the likes of Sam Snead, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus continued to achieve great things at a time when their 30s were no more than a diminishing dot in the rearview mirror.

None of this is lost on Ernie, of course.He is physically in very good shape and his oily-smooth swing-type, very much in the mould of say, Sam Snead in its flowing nature, will probably endure well. As Ernie said earlier this year, the hour glass is starting to run out a little bit, but he's still got plenty left in the tank.

“Obviously you would like to complete your goals and for me that's the Grand Slam,” he says. “I've wanted to do that since I was a kid. It was a seriously big dreamback then, but they say you've got to dream big. My motivation has never been lacking and I still believe I can do it.”