However, they also split time between South Africa and their family home in Jupiter, Florida, in order to get better treatment for Ben's autism. Their main residence is at the Wentworth Estate near Wentworth Golf Club in the south of England. In 2008, after Els started to display an " Autism Speaks" logo on his golf bag it was announced that their then five-year-old son was autistic. Els contested the 1987 British Amateur Championship, qualifying from stroke play for the 64-player match play segment, but was knocked out there.Įls married his wife Liezl in 1998 in Cape Town, and they have two children, Samantha and Ben. Els won the South African Amateur a few months after his 17th birthday, becoming the youngest-ever winner of that event, breaking the record which had been held since 1935 by Bobby Locke. Phil Mickelson was second to Els that year. Els first achieved prominence in 1984, when he won the Junior World Golf Championship in the Boys 13–14 category. It was around this time that he decided to focus exclusively on golf. Els first learned the game of golf from his father Neels, a trucking executive, at the Germiston Golf course, He was soon playing better than his father (and his older brother, Dirk), and by the age of 14 he was a scratch handicap. He was a skilled junior tennis player and won the Eastern Transvaal Junior Championships at age 13. Growing up in Lambton, Germiston, South Africa, Els played rugby, cricket, tennis and, starting at age 8, golf.
When not playing, he has a golf course design business, a charitable foundation that supports golf among underprivileged youth in South Africa, and a winemaking business. Įls now primarily plays on the PGA Tour Champions. He was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2010, on his first time on the ballot, and was inducted in May 2011. Els rose to fifteenth in the world rankings after winning the 2012 Open Championship. He has held the number one spot in the Official World Golf Ranking and until 2013 held the record for weeks ranked in the top ten with 788. He was the leading career money winner on the European Tour until overtaken by Lee Westwood in 2011, and was the first member of the tour to earn over €25,000,000 from European Tour events. Other highlights in Els's career include topping the 20 European Tour Order of Merit (money list), and winning the World Match Play Championship a record seven times. He is one of six golfers to twice win both the U.S. Open in 1994 at Oakmont and in 1997 at Congressional, and The Open Championship in 2002 at Muirfield and in 2012 at Royal Lytham & St Annes. Among his more than 70 career victories are four major championships: the U.S. 1, he is nicknamed "The Big Easy" due to his physical stature (he stands 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)) along with his fluid golf swing. Theodore Ernest Els ( / ˈ ɛ l s/ born 17 October 1969) is a South African professional golfer.
0 kommentar(er)
