Els 'a little dead inside' after putting disaster on opening hole

Ernie Els sat down at a table in the nearly empty clubhouse grill room, lifted his cap and raked a hand through his hair. He exhaled as he leaned back in the chair.

He had just given not one, but two interviews trying to explain the “unexplainable” putting infarction that derailed his 22nd Masters Tournament before it even got past the first green.

“How you holding up?” I asked.

“I’m a little dead inside,” Els admitted.

Even for a 46-year-old man with a history of putting struggles, what transpired on his very first hole of the major he covets most was shocking. Els lost track of the number of putts he missed – all from 1 to 3 feet – on the first green. For four hours his score stood at 10 after a seven-putt hole until tournament officials told him it was actually just six putts when he went to sign his scorecard.

“First hole of the tournament,” he said. “You’ve got a 3-footer for par and you walk off with a nine – they gave me a nine, by the way, somebody counted it properly – what do you do? It’s unexplainable.”

Anybody who plays the game for recreation can empathize with ruining a round on the first hole. “Yips” is one of those words that even 20-handicap players don’t speak out loud.

For a Hall of Famer with four major titles to his credit, though, it was painful to watch. Perhaps not nearly as painful to experience and later explain.

Els talked about “brain transplants.” He talked about “snakes” in his head. He talked about walking off the course while he was still close enough to his car to get out of town and hide.

“I can’t explain it,” he said. “It’s something, there’s a short up there somewhere and you just can’t do what you normally do. It’s unexplainable. You know, a lot of people have stopped playing the game, you know, getting that feeling. It’s unexplainable. I couldn’t get the putter back. I was standing there. I’ve got a 3-footer. I’ve made thousands of 3-footers and I just stood there and couldn’t take it back.

“And then I just kind of lost count after … I mean, the whole day was done. I tried to fight. I’m hitting the ball half-decent and I can’t make it from 2 feet.”

On a windy Thursday afternoon that shattered plenty of other Masters dreams, Els did indeed hang in. He played his next nine holes in level par before a double bogey on No. 11.

“I don’t know how I stayed out there,” he said. “But you love the game and you’ve got to have respect for the tournament and so forth, but it’s unexplainable. It’s very tough to tell you what goes through your mind. It’s the last thing that you want to do is do that on a golf course at this level.”

Whatever demons that showed up on the first green never went away. They showed up in smaller increments all day.

“I missed from 2 feet on 18 and a 4-footer on 17,” Els said, ticking off the strokes that leaked away until he signed for a career-worst 80 at Augusta. “You count them up, it must have been 15 shots out there, just on the greens. … I mean, on 17, 18, 16, 15, 14, you name it, I missed a putt almost on every hole.”

Els won the British Open at Royal Lytham in 2012 with a belly putter. With the ban on anchored putting going into effect Jan. 1, Els went back to his conventional putter last year. Video of several glaring yips he suffered went viral, but he came to Augusta feeling pretty confident on the greens.

“I had a guy who I thought was OK the last two days to work with me, and obviously, it didn’t quite register in the brain,” Els said. “I got a little confused out there, and there you go. It’s one of those things, you know. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Someone finally asked what Els would do with his putter. He didn’t blame the putter, just the one putting.

“Well, I can putt with a stick,” he said. “You have snakes and stuff going up in your brain, you know, it’s difficult. It’s something that … what holds you from doing your normal thing? I don’t know what it is. I can go to that putting green now and make 20 straight 3-footers. And then you get on a course and you feel a little different and you can’t do what you normally do.”

This place has been cruel to Els through the years, never letting him fulfill his Masters dreams. He first died a little in 2004 when he was standing – of all places – on the putting green when Phil Mickelson drained a long birdie putt to avoid a playoff with Els. Ever since, he’s grown to expect a disaster lurking in dark corners of the pristine grounds.

“Somewhere down the line something is going to happen that’s not good,” he said in 2010 when he spoke of Augusta National “killing me.” “I’ve had too many of those experiences. It’s one of those tournaments. At least other majors we play different venues. So you’re not going to go back to the same holes, and go, ‘Oh … two years ago I did this there.’ That’s the thing.”

Yet even feeling a little dead inside after Thursday, Els could not blame Augusta National.

“No, I love this place,” he said. “I love it.”

Els may not know where he goes from here except that it will start at 9:59 a.m. on the No. 1 tee, where the next 445 yards won’t prove to be the hardest he’ll need to navigate.