Ernie’s Latest News – 4 August

04 Aug

It’s been a little while since the last website report, so it’s about time we got you up to speed on all my latest news.

We’ve played three tournaments these past 5-6 weeks, starting at the RBC Heritage in June, then at Memorial, followed by last week’s Ally Challenge on the Champions Tour. It’s obviously been a long lay-off, but we were very fortunate. We were home in Florida and I played quite a lot of golf – social distancing and all that – and shot some good numbers. Most importantly, we all stayed corona-free, thank goodness.

Anyway, it’s a relief to be back in the swing of tournament golf. Had a bit of back trouble at Muirfield Village, which was frustrating, but that’s fine now. And all in all, my game feels like it’s in pretty good shape. It was certainly nice to be at Warwick Hills for the first time in over 20 years. I had good tournaments there back in the day and, as soon as we saw it on the schedule, I was really looking forward to going back. And I guess you could say it proved to be a bit of a happy return, at least in round one, with me recording my 17th career hole-in-one. That was a nice little moment. Happy to say that the beers were on me Sunday night!

Looking ahead, as we’ve said before, I’m not going to play much PGA TOUR golf. Maybe now and again if we get in the field on past champions’ status or something like that, but most of my golf will be on the Champions TOUR. I really like it out here. Winning at the Hoag Classic (below), my first win in seven years, was a thrill and it gave me a bit of energy and momentum. The TOUR has done a wonderful job with the revised schedule and it’s exciting to be looking forward to a good run of tournaments this fall. Let’s see how we go.

Talking of revised schedules, the team at Els for Autism in South Africa has announced the dates for our Drive to Sun City series (see poster below). Hats off to Nico Van Rensburg and the rest of the guys; they’ve done a great job in exceptionally challenging circumstances. Thank you to all our wonderful event hosts. Also, big thanks to venue sponsor Sun International and head sponsor Imperial KWS Logistics. If you’d like to take part in any of these golf days, please email: southafrica@elsforautism.org.

Just to round things off, there’s been a lot of talk recently about distance and how the governing bodies handle things. In fact, seems like we’ve been talking about this for decades! Obviously people have different ideas on this, for instance rolling back the golf ball, and so forth. For me – and we posted this on Twitter a few weeks ago – our game is in a good place. Equipment improvements and distance are here to stay. Full stop! What we need is a serious premium on accuracy. Golf courses don’t need to be longer. Just make the TOUR rough knee high, make the fairways fast and firm which is fair for all players, and we can go play. Simple. The time for talking is done, though. It really is time for some action now.

Okay, that’s it for now.

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