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In 2001, during the intense hype and heat of the US Open at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Ernie Els stood on the driving range hitting balls.
He was the last player on the range. It was significant in that it represented the one aspect of Els and his career that has not received as much credit as is due: his work ethic.
Last weekend at the Maybank Championship, that work ethic was a lot plainer for all to see in the cold, hard number of 300.
Els achieved the incredible milestone of 300 top tens in professional tournaments since the inception of the official world golf ranking in 1986. It’s a record no other player in the game has.
And no matter the tales of a fun-loving Els that golf fans love to share, you don’t “luck” your way to 300 top tens. There is only one way you develop that kind of unmatched consistency in a career.
“There are no short cuts to get to the top. There’s hard work. There’s a love for the sport. And then you’ve got to get your breaks. And if you don’t get those breaks, you’ve got to keep working. That’s the bottom line,” Els told a gathering of his Ernie Els & Fancourt Foundation students.
The fact that he walked off that driving range in Tulsa as the last player still working his tail off is even more impressive considering it was in the midst of one of the most successful periods in his career.
By 2001, he’d already won two US Opens. A year earlier, he’d finished runner-up three times in the Majors. In 2001, he had top tens in two of the four Majors.
A year later, he was crowned the European Tour player of the year, won the Open Championship and finished tied fifth in the Masters.
And he won the European Tour order of merit in 2003 and 2004.
“You’ve got to love what you do. It’s never felt like a job to me. Work hard, love it, and don’t give up,” Els said.
“You know, whether you six-putt a green or whether you’re a champion, you have to love the game. You’re not perfect and you’ve got to show character to come back from the setbacks.
“It’s been one helluva journey for me – I’ll be 50 in 2019. I was so sure of where I was going in my career. I wanted to leave school at 15, and my dad kept me in there. But I was one of the lucky ones. The competition nowadays is very tough. I’ve seen how it’s changed in the past 20 years. In my heyday, there were maybe five or 10 of us at the very top of the game. Now there are at least 20 at the top and, at the next level, there are maybe 80 guys playing very similar golf. To get on to the tours nowadays is not that easy, and when you get on, you’ve got to stay on.”
Els is also enough of a realist to know that the kind of consistency his 300 top tens reveals is a combination of several factors, not least of which is support.
“There’s a lot of money in our sport, but your burn rate is pretty big, too. The expenses you have eat into the money you make, so you need good sponsors. I also had a lot of great backing from my family. I always had help from my family to get into golf tournaments throughout the world. I went to the US when I was 13 years old and my dad paid for that,” he said.
“It’s one of the reasons we started the Ernie Els & Fancourt Foundation, because I’d seen throughout my career how players who were privileged enough to get to tournaments, like myself, could elevate themselves to a higher standard as a golfer a lot faster than some of my friends who didn’t have that privilege.”
It’s significant that the player second to Els on the career top 10 list is Vijay Singh with 275.
Singh is the epitome of golf’s workaholic; the man who many professionals of that generation would say they’d try to outlast on the practice range; the man who would reportedly practise until his hands bled.
How do you get to the top in golf?
Quite simple, really – you outwork the guy with the bleeding hands.
