{"id":12659,"date":"2012-07-23T01:17:22","date_gmt":"2012-07-22T23:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/golf-its-a-crazy-feeling-for-relieved-big-easy-els\/"},"modified":"2012-07-23T01:17:22","modified_gmt":"2012-07-22T23:17:22","slug":"golf-its-a-crazy-feeling-for-relieved-big-easy-els","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/golf-its-a-crazy-feeling-for-relieved-big-easy-els\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf-It’s a crazy feeling for relieved "Big Easy" Els"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

By Ed Osmond<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

LYTHAM ST ANNES, England, July 22<\/span> (Reuters) – British Open
\nchampion Ernie Els described his crazy feelings after taking
\nadvantage of a stunning late collapse by Australian Adam Scott
\nto win his fourth major title on Sunday.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Els birdied the last hole to finish on seven under par and
\nas the South African munched a sandwich on the practice green
\nexpecting a playoff at best, Scott suffered his fourth
\nsuccessive bogey on the 18th to hand the Claret Jug to the
\n42-year-old.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“It is amazing,” Els told reporters. “I’m still numb. It
\nstill hasn’t sunk in. It will probably take quite a few days
\nbecause I haven’t been in this position for 10 years so it’s
\njust crazy, crazy, crazy getting here.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Els, who will climb from 40th to 15th in the world rankings,
\nwas referring to his last Open victory in 2002 at Muirfield when
\nhe beat Australians Stuart Appleby and Steve Elkington and
\nFrenchman Thomas Levet in a four-hole playoff.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“I remember I was very relieved at Muirfield because I
\nalmost did what Scottie did,” he said. “I was lucky enough to
\nmake birdie on 17 and make par on 18 to get in the playoff. I
\nhad the lead most of the time also there.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Els, the second 42-year-old to win the Open following Darren
\nClarke’s victory at Sandwich 12 months ago, said he felt
\nconfident going into the final round despite trailing leader
\nScott by six shots.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“I felt good after yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t play
\nmyself out of it. But it’s hard to explain. For some reason I
\nfelt something good was going to come out of this.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Els won the 1994 and 1997 U.S. Opens early in his career and
\ntopped the world rankings three times in 1997 and 1998 for a
\ntotal of nine weeks.
\n\u00a0 Continued…<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ed Osmond LYTHAM ST ANNES, England, July 22 (Reuters) – British Open champion Ernie Els described his crazy feelings after taking advantage of a stunning late collapse by Australian Adam Scott to win his fourth major title on Sunday. Els birdied the last hole to finish on seven under par and as the South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}