Ernie Els looking to defend Heineken title

Ernie Els won the first two U.S. PGA Tour events of the season without Tiger Woods in the field, a fact not lost on the Big Easy.

`Obviously you want the best field on a particular week,'' Els said at the Heineken Classic, where he begins play Thursday as defending champion.

``If you beat the best field in the world, you feel a lot better, it's a better win. But I was so tuned in to what I was doing in those weeks that I wasn't thinking much about Tiger.''

Woods won't return to the Tour for another two weeks while he recovers from December knee surgery. Els won the season-opening Mercedes and Sony Open events in Hawaii.

``He is going to come around one of these days and we'll have to deal with him again,'' Els said of Woods. ``You just do the best with the situation that you have. I feel that if I play my best golf, I can beat any field.''

Els likes Royal Melbourne, site of this week's Classic, and feels that gives him an edge over the field that includes Greg Norman and Nick Faldo in the joint European-Australasian tour event.

All three played Wednesday in the pro-am on the par-72 composite course at Royal Melbourne, the same used for the 1998 Presidents Cup.

``The greens, the flow of the golf course, it is a classic design,'' said Els. ``It is not overly long but with the wind and the weather thrown in, it is a great golf course.''

``To win last year's tournament from start to finish and win my first tournament for about a year was a great step. To do it on a golf course like Royal Melbourne was a great confidence boost.''

Els feels that the improvements made by his ``sports motivator,'' Belgian psychologist Jos Vanstiphout, who he has been working with since 2001, are starting to pay off.

``The biggest change has been the mental side,'' said Els. ``He (Vanstiphout) comes from a totally different angle and throws different stuff at me. He makes me think in different ways.''

He admitted that the relationship can be confrontational.

``I am an introvert in some ways,'' said Els. ``I am kind of shy in other ways. He is pretty straightforward. He is very honest.''

Els said he was ``nowhere mentally'' when the two started working together, but ``we've worked hard on a lot of stuff.''

Vanstiphout and Els sat together on the plane on the way to Melbourne from Singapore, where Els shot a closing 73, including four bogeys on the last 11 holes, to lose the Singapore Masters by a stroke to China's Zhang Lian-Wei.

``We had a nice discussion about what happened,'' said Els. ``You don't always play the way you want. Let it happen in Singapore. We've got bigger things on our minds.''

Next up is defending his title at Royal Melbourne, where he led from start to finish last year.

One guy Els won't have to worry about this week is John Daly, who decided about 10 days ago not to make another trip to Australia, forcing organizers to cross out his name from the tournament poster.

In late November, Daly missed the cut at the Australian PGA championship at Coolum after a run-in with a rules official. Six holes later, after a 6-over 78, he threw his putter and ball into the lake off the 18th green and was fined for the outburst.

Tony Roosenburg, a longtime friend of Daly's who promotes both the Coolum and Heineken events, said after Daly's outburst that he would reconsider whether to have the American back for the Heineken. But a day later, Roosenburg said he wanted Daly to return to Melbourne because of his crowd appeal.

``It was his decision not to come,'' tournament spokesperson Kathie Shearer said Wednesday. ``We would have had him back any time.''

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