The nickname did him a disservice. Ernie Els swung a golf club the way other people pour a cup of tea, and a whole generation decided he must have been handed something the rest of us had to go and earn. The scorecards say otherwise. Born on 17 October 1969 in Johannesburg and raised in Kempton Park on the East Rand, he turned 57 yesterday.
A Boy Who Could Have Played Anything
He was a rugby player, a cricketer and a tennis player before he was a golfer, and he was good enough at all three that the choice was a real one. Golf started at eight. By 14 he was in San Diego winning the Junior World title in the boys 13-14 division, with a teenager named Phil Mickelson finishing second behind him.
In 1986 he won the South African Amateur as a schoolboy, taking the record for youngest champion off Gary Player. Army service followed from January 1988. He turned professional in 1989, two months short of his 20th birthday.
Five Weeks in 1992 That Changed Everything
Between 16 January and 15 February 1992, a 22-year-old won the South African Open at Houghton, the Lexington PGA at the Wanderers and the SA Masters at a newly opened Dainfern. Only Player had done that in the same season, and he had done it at 44. Els won six of eight Sunshine Tour events that summer.
That is the part of the story South Africans tend to skip. The Claret Jugs came later; the serial-winner habit was built on highveld fairways in front of home crowds, against men who had been pros since he was in primary school.
🗣️ “People called him The Big Easy because of the swing, but look at what it actually took — 20 playoff holes at Oakmont, a four-man playoff at Muirfield, and a ten-year wait for the last one. Easy had nothing to do with it!”
– 🎙️Jay
Oakmont, 1994, and Twenty Holes of Nerve
His first major came at 24, at the hardest test in American golf. Tied with Colin Montgomerie and Loren Roberts after 72 holes, Ernie Els opened the 18-hole playoff bogey, triple bogey — and still ground out a 74 to match Roberts. He took it on the second hole of sudden death, 20 playoff holes in all.
Three years later he won the US Open again, at Congressional, a shot clear of Montgomerie, and went to world number one that June. At Wentworth he turned the World Match Play into his own private event, winning the first three he entered and five more besides.
The Decade He Spent Finishing Second
Then came the hard part. Els finished runner-up in six majors, three of them in 2000 alone, in the years when Tiger Woods was winning everything that mattered. In 2001 he piled up nine second places worldwide without a PGA Tour win.
Muirfield in 2002 broke the run — a four-man playoff with Stuart Appleby, Steve Elkington and Thomas Levet, settled only at the fifth extra hole against the Frenchman. But 2004 was crueller than most: second at the Masters when Mickelson birdied the last, then a playoff loss to Todd Hamilton at Royal Troon. Ten years would pass before he lifted another major.
Lytham, 2012: The Claret Jug at 42
He was 42 and written off when he played the back nine at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 32 strokes, closing with a 15-foot birdie at the last. Four groups behind, Adam Scott bogeyed all four closing holes. Els won The Open by one.
He told the BBC he felt numb, and that he felt for Scott, a close friend. It remains one of the great late-career majors, and it made him one of only six men to win both the US Open and The Open twice.
Ben, Liezl, and the Building in Jupiter
The achievement he will be measured by has nothing to do with golf. After their son Ben was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, he and his wife Liezl founded Els for Autism in 2009 and committed $6 million of their own money to building The Els Center of Excellence in Jupiter, Florida.
The 26-acre campus opened its first buildings in 2015 and now houses two tuition-free public charter schools serving students from age three to 21, alongside the foundation’s early intervention, recreation and adult services. Families have relocated from South Africa to use it. Closer to home, the Ernie Els and Fancourt Foundation, started in 1999, put Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel on the path to their own major titles.
Still Going at 57
He has not stopped competing. His first PGA Tour Champions win came at the Hoag Classic in March 2020, in only his third start as a 50-year-old. Three more followed in 2024, including the Kaulig Companies Championship at Firestone, a senior major taken by one shot from Y.E. Yang at the age of 54.
He opened 2025 by winning the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai for his seventh senior title, and has spent 2026 inside the top 10 week after week without converting one. He builds golf courses on four continents and makes wine in Stellenbosch.
The Record, in Full
- Four major championships — US Open 1994 (Oakmont), US Open 1997 (Congressional), The Open 2002 (Muirfield), The Open 2012 (Royal Lytham & St Annes)
- One senior major — Kaulig Companies Championship, 2024, Firestone
- More than 70 professional victories worldwide
- 19 PGA Tour titles, 28 DP World Tour titles, 15 Sunshine Tour titles, seven PGA Tour Champions titles, five PGA Tour of Australasia titles
- World number one in June 1997, nine weeks at the top in total
- Seven World Match Play titles at Wentworth, a record, the first three won consecutively in 1994, 1995 and 1996
- Two World Golf Championship titles
- European Tour Order of Merit winner in 2003 and 2004; first player on that tour past €25 million in career earnings
- European Tour Player of the Year 1994, 2002 and 2003; PGA Tour Rookie of the Year 1994
- The South African Triple Crown, 1992 — SA Open, SA PGA and SA Masters inside five weeks, a feat shared only with Gary Player
- South African Open champion in 1992, 1996, 1998, 2007 and 2010
- Eight Presidents Cup appearances between 1996 and 2013; International team captain in 2019
- Five World Cup of Golf appearances for South Africa between 1992 and 2001
- Junior World champion 1984; South African Boys and South African Amateur champion 1986, the youngest winner of the Amateur at the time; South African Amateur Stroke Play champion 1989
- 35 top-10 finishes in majors, including six as runner-up
- Inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, 2011
Happy 57th Birthday, Ernie. We hope you had a great one yesterday. From all of us at Just Plain Sport — the swing made you famous, but the stubbornness is what we will be telling our kids about. 🎂⛳
Just Plain Sport | Published 18 October 2026 | PGA Tour Champions · South Africa · Golf
Written by Jay |
