VERY few golfers could afford to view a tournament worth £500,000 to the winner primarily as a warm-up for an event the following week. Ernie Els is one of them, playing the Barclays Scottish Open mainly as an exercise in rust removal ahead of his attempt this week at Birkdale to reprise his 2002 Open championship victory at Muirfield.
The big South African's natural competitiveness, of course, would not allow him to forget entirely about winning at Loch Lomond – a venue where he has been twice successful – but it was not difficult to discern from his utterances on the eve of the
tournament last Wednesday that any betting voucher he might hold on the outcome would not have his own name on it.
In the circumstances, his last-round 69 and aggregate of seven-under par 206 for a share of ninth place was almost entirely satisfactory, leaving him clearly convinced that the three weeks of inactivity that preceded his visit to Scotland has been beneficial and that he should be regarded as a serious contender for the big event in Southport.
"I think, mentally, the break has been beneficial," said Els. "It's been a pretty awkward year, to say the least, and I'm trying to get some positive stuff going. After my first round here, I didn't feel in a great frame of mind, but I think I'm a bit better now.
"I think if I'd continued to play the way I did that first day (one-over 72), I wouldn't have been here for the week-end. But I think my freshness kept me here, kept me grinding away."
That "grinding" brought successive sub-par rounds of 66, 70 and 69 and confirmed in his own mind that all but one aspect of his game is satisfactory. He retains only mild reservations about his putting.
"I could have done a lot better over the weekend here," he said. "The last nine yesterday (Saturday), I played really well and did so again today from tee to green, but the putts dried up. I missed a lot of putts over the weekend. The stroke's not at all bad, it's just the speed and the read every now and again. But I did get the rust off the rest of my game in time for Birkdale."
Els's need to sharpen his putting echoes the need of the other top-ranked player at Loch Lomond, Phil Mickelson. Curiously, the world No2, and the man with arguably the most refined short game on the planet, feels he has to improve his chipping before he reaches the great Merseyside links.
After yesterday's disappointing 73 and a total of two-under par for the tournament, Mickelson said: "Now the focus is on the next week at Birkdale. I know how I want to attack the golf course. I can now address some of the weaknesses that I had this week. These next two or three days I will start to address what was wrong here. It's mainly my short game."
