Golf Vic Vol 60 No 3 2019

tournament by Charles Happell As the Presidents Cup edges ever closer, CHARLES HAPPELL examines the challenge for International captain Ernie Els – how to turn the disparate into the desperate and knock over Tiger’s men at Royal Melbourne. The 13th Presidents Cup gets underway at Royal Melbourne in December which means International team captain Ernie Els has just months to do what has so far proved beyond all but one of his predecessors: assemble a team that has a sense of shared purpose, team spirit and desperate will to win. This has been the great conundrum facing International captains ever since the teams tournament was first played in 1994 - how to get a disparate group of 12 players, who hail from seven or eight different countries and often ply their trade on three different tours, to gel together for one week every second year. It’s a job even Kofi Annan might have baulked at. So far, with the notable exception of Peter Thomson’s 1998 teamwhich blitzed the US at Royal Melbourne, the task has been beyond them all. The overall Presidents Cup scoreline stands at 10-1-1, an embarrassing reminder of just how lopsided this contest has been, with the past five Cups decided by a combined 20 points. But in Ernie Els, the rather laidback and insouciant South African, the Cup might have found the kind of dynamic and pro-active driving force it needs. Els, who knows a thing or two about Presidents Cups, having played in eight of them between 1996 and 2013, has wholeheartedly embraced his role as captain and is determined to make a success of it. In recent months, he has done his best cat-herding impersonation by trying to get all of his key players – who come from Korea, Australia, South Africa, China, Mexico, Japan and Canada – under the one roof to discuss their common goal. How they can win this thing again after 21 years. As Els has said: in past Cups, the sense of esprit de corps in the International dressing room has only surfaced on Sunday evening, after the team has played together for a week and got to know each other. Unfortunately, by then the Cup has long since been decided and the trophy is being cradled by the US team captain on his way back to the airport. So Els has been pro-active in trying to establish this camaraderie before the start of the tournament rather than after it. At the Zurich Classic in New Orleans tournament in April, he and his assistant captain Trevor Immelman organised nearly 20 prospective teammembers to have dinner on the Tuesday evening. They gathered at Arnaud’s, an upscale restaurant in New Orleans’ French Quarter, a short walk from Bourbon Street, and … got to know each other. The night was filled with authentic Creole food, a glass or three of wine and stories from an eclectic group that ranged from veteran Adam Scott to 20-year- old Joaquin Niemann of Chile. ERNIE & TIGER CUP BATTLE LOOMS 30 Golf Victoria