The vision to excel
Even as a boy in South Africa, Trevor Immelman knew he would be a champion golfer - but he couldn't have foreseen the path his dream would lead him down.
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The 6-year-old boy walked into the living room of his home in South Africa and made and audacious declaration.
"Mom and Dad, I've got something to tell you," he said.
"I'm going to be one of the best golfers in the world."
And so the youngest son of Johan and June Immelman began his stated mission that 22 years later earned him a green jacket.
Simple, right?
"Immediately I turned to June and said, 'Two things can happen here,' " his father said. " 'We can laugh at him and kill his vision, and that's it. Or we can choose to believe him. If we do choose to believe him, what are we going to do about it?' "
What they did was enable their child to pursue a dream that would lead him down Magnolia Lane.
"So when people ask us, 'How did you know he was going to win Augusta?' " Johan Immelman said, "We say, 'Basically because he told us when he was 6 years old.' " Immelman laughs at the memory of that far-away moment and all of the other steps that led him to return this week as the defending Masters champion.
"I don't reminisce about things all that often unless I'm asked," Immelman said. "But the times I do, it's an amazing path that unfolded. There've been so many crazy little scenarios which have worked out at the right time that have enabled me to get into this situation. It's a cool story."
Tag-along start
That cool story starts with a detour. Like most competitive-minded South African boys, Trevor and his older brother, Mark, aspired to be rugby players.
- Johan Immelman, Trevor's father
"That's what all the cool athletes in South Africa do," said Mark, who is nine years older. "They're big and strong, and all the girls love them."
The Immelmans were lacking in the big department. "Vertically challenged," Trevor calls it.
So the little brother watched Mark rack up a series of broken wrists and collar bones until a doctor finally suggested a new hobby.
"I smartened up a little quicker than my brother because I saw the mistakes that he was making," Trevor said. "I started realizing that I probably wouldn't be any different in size and shape and could save myself some pain by not competing at too high a level."
It was Mark who discovered golf as a risk-free alternative for his competitive impulses. One round on their local course, Somerset West, and he was smitten. The only catch was that he had to let his 4-year-old brother tag along to keep him out of the house all summer.
"Mark was the golfer, and Trevor sort of got sucked into his slipstream," their father said.
Mark remembers being irritated at being his brother's keeper, but Trevor recalls it differently.
"Mark and his friends just kind of accepted that I was there and I loved the game," Trevor said. "Even though they were all nine or 10 years older than me, we were all learning at the same time."
It was Mark's friend, Ian Dallas-Orr, who looked after the little kid dragging his club and bag along, trying desperately to keep up with the larger boys.
"I kind of felt sorry for the guy," Dallas-Orr said. "He was trying so hard. I kind of picked his bag up and carried him around the course sometimes when he couldn't make the distance."
- Gary Player
Though both Immelmans are left-handed, Mark played with a right-handed set and quickly converted his little brother. It didn't take long to realize Trevor possessed a gift for the game and Mark had a knack for teaching it.
"I remember watching him, and when he got ahold of a club, even though he was left-handed, left or right just seemed to fit with his hand," Mark said. "He'd just swing it, and it was simple, and he'd connect, and the ball would just go. Honestly, he showed it early."
Immelman even attracted the attention of South Africa's best golfer, Gary Player, at an exhibition at Somerset West near Cape Town. The three-time Masters winner scooped up the 5-year-old and hoisted him to his shoulders.
The encounter evolved into a relationship that continues to this day.
"I've been very fortunate with just by hook or by crook meeting the right people at the right time," Immelman said. "When you get put in those situations, what it did for me was just inspire me. I got to meet my heroes and meet people I looked up to, so it just kept that fire going -- that belief that a kid from South Africa could make it."
The folks around Somerset West figured that out as well as Trevor got older and better.
"We'd get to the golf course with a couple of rand in our pockets, which wasn't really enough for food or drink," Mark said.
So his brother would win money from the members.
"Trevor would be trolling around the shop waiting for someone to lighten their pocket a little bit. At the end of 18 holes he was always holding his little hand out." After Mark finished his mandatory military stint and went to play college golf at Georgia's Columbus State University, 12-year-old Trevor was already beating his brother's friends at home.
"My father said, 'You spend a lot of time at the golf course just for an average golfer. Where's this going?' " Dallas-Orr said. "I told him I just enjoyed playing with Trev because I really see him going somewhere someday. I said he'll be top 10 in the world one day, and my dad just laughed at me. I didn't know what I was talking about myself either, but I really believed he had this extra factor, and I experienced that on the course."
Johan and June Immelman believed it, too.
"Our dad is very much about purpose and what you're designed to do," said Mark, who early on expressed his own goal to be a teacher. "He always says if your child wants to play the piano, don't send him to law school. He put his money where his mouth was with Trevor. A lot of kids go to their parents and say, 'I want to do this,' but my parents went with it. They gave Trevor every opportunity. Trevor made his opportunities, but my folks did what needed to be done for him."
Said Johan: "It's easy to help somebody that's got a vision. It's very difficult to help somebody that doesn't know where they're going or what they want to do."
Most of the help involved supplying the kids with the means to play and transporting them all across South Africa.
"June and I never, ever, never from day one had to tell him to practice," Johan said. "Our deal was always if Trevor said 'golf club' we would drop what we were doing, put him in the car and take him to the golf club. He told us that was what he wanted to do."
They also built him a small putting green in their backyard. It was quickly dubbed "Trev's Corner" as he took ownership of all competitions held there.
"That was his real course in all the sense," Dallas-Orr said. "Whenever we were chipping from around the corner of the house or across the street or over somebody's house to his garden, he would make every move. He would practice those little corners before we would arrive from class. So before we got there he would already know exactly where to hit it while we were hitting windows and garage doors and swimming pools."
Young stardom
At Columbus State, Mark Immelman became an all-American for the two-time Division II champs. But when he went home to South Africa and played his 13-year-old brother, the perspective changed.
"I used to kind of measure myself against him because they were a great Division II school, and so when he would come home I'd be able to see where I stood," Trevor said.
"I remember the first day we went out to play, and I just managed to nip him on the last hole," Mark said. "Then the next day he got me. And that was that. I had a very good year in college over here, and I go home and get whipped by my younger brother. It was like an eye-opener. That's when I had the proverbial Harvey Penick experience. If I'm thinking about playing golf, I better try something else, because I can't even beat my household."
Trevor reveled in the victory. So did his brother.
"I hate to admit it, but I took great delight in him beating me," Mark said. "I guess that's how the whole family fits together. We understood that Trev was the one."
By now Immelman was an amateur star in South Africa and looking to develop his game. He would take trips to the United States to play American Junior Golf Association events as his amateur career progressed, staying with host families in Florida and California. He quickly established himself as a golfer who believed in himself and his talents.
His brother vividly remembers Trevor's confidence at one pre-tournament barbecue when he pulled on a T-shirt that said, "Hold my trophy while I kiss your girlfriend."
"Trevor puts this shirt on, and I said, 'Trevor, you can't wear that shirt,' " Mark said. "He said, 'Watch me,' and off we went."
That confidence, and his success, caught the eye of No Fear clothing, and the already globe-trotting Immelman enjoyed the slogan and the intimidating look that went with it. In 1997, he rode that look right to the finals of four major amateur events on four continents, including a 1-down loss to Jason Allred in a U.S. Junior Amateur field that included Adam Scott, Sean O'Hair, Hunter Mahan and Lucas Glover.
A month earlier, Immelman suffered the most disappointing loss of his young career at the British Amateur at Royal St. George's. Riding a streak of six consecutive tournament wins, including the South African Amateur, the 17-year-old reached the finals of the world's oldest amateur championship. He exuded confidence that he would become the first South African since Bobby Cole in 1966 to win the title and was reportedly overheard telling folks at home that he'd "ring back after I've won" the final against Scotland's Craig Watson.
"He was, to say the least, a tad cocky," wrote Lewine Mair in London's Telegraph , a theme that would leave him shredded by the British press after Immelman lost 3 and 2.
It was a hard lesson in humility. But that wasn't the hardest part of that defeat. Immelman was two up after the first 18 holes and was within reach of a lifelong goal.
"I'm 18 holes from Augusta National," Immelman told his brother, who was caddying for him that week.
As the wind kicked up in the afternoon, the 31-year-old Watson won three of the first four holes, and Immelman never regained the momentum.
"He would have been the youngest winner ever," Mark said. "But even then Augusta National was on his mind."
Immelman was stung by the defeat and the harsh press.
"When you're that age, losing is not really an option, and when you do lose it's a tough pill to swallow," he said. "Realizing that I wasn't going to make it to Augusta was tough. I think it just made me more determined."
Lure of Augusta
The allure of the Masters had whispered to Immelman since his youth.
"There's a mystique about the Masters that calls every golfer, no matter how old they are," his mother said.
Seven time zones ahead, the Immelman boys would suffer bleary eyes at school having stayed up past midnight to watch all the way through the Butler Cabin ceremony. Trevor dreamed of following in the footsteps of Player.
"Trevor always said that the thing to do in golf was to win the green jacket," his father said.
But he also wanted to compete in the tournament as an amateur. Drawn by all of the Bobby Jones mystique, he was obsessed with having the Masters amateur experience.
Teased by the British Amateur near miss, Immelman got his next chance the following summer at the U.S. Public Links.
"I was lucky to have the opportunity to play the Public Links because when my brother was at university in Columbus I joined Bull Creek Club, which was a public golf course," Immelman said.
He cruised through the bracket at Torrey Pines, and when he defeated Jason Dufner, he picked up his mother and shouted, "We're going to Augusta!"
As an amateur at Augusta National, Immelman stayed in the Crow's Nest atop the clubhouse. He played practice rounds with Ernie Els and Player and was paired with Player the first two rounds.
"Here I was, this 19-year-old kid, and I'm petrified," Immelman said. "I'm still petrified when I go to Augusta on the first day. Everybody is. There's only one thing that can equal it in golf, and that is playing the Open Championship at the Old Course. That's my opinion. It's a very special feeling for a professional golfer."
Despite his nerves, Immelman shot 72 in the first round and was just three off the lead.
"We started having delusions of grandeur," his brother said.
Immelman shot 76 in the second round, and his friends and family were certain he'd miss the cut.
"I remember all of us walking outside of the house, and we're standing around, all so morbid," Mark said. "A guy comes running out and said Trevor still has a chance. If Matt Kuchar bogeyed and Tom Watson makes a mistake, he's OK. So he played the weekend."
He shot 78 playing "shell-shocked" with Vijay Singh in the third round and 79 on Sunday to finish last among the 56 players to make the cut, but he was the first Public Links champion to play the weekend.
"I was very impressed," Player said. "I think he got it up and down the last two holes to make the cut. Very tough indeed when an amateur comes to play there. That's another league."
Said Els, a three-time major winner: "He was always the next guy from South Africa to do something big."
Challenges
Immelman's next decision was whether to go to college or turn pro -- South Africa dropped mandatory military service before he finished high school.
Highly recruited from major U.S. programs, including Georgia and Oklahoma State, Immelman responded to advice from Els.
"He's really forged a big relationship with Ernie, and he looked up to Ernie," his brother said. "And when Ernie said, 'You're good enough, just go play and learn your craft,' that was enough."
"I just felt like I was ready to play professional golf," Immelman said. "I wasn't, but I kind of equate it to having kids. You hear people say -- and I said it -- 'We're just not ready.' But even when you think you're ready, you're not ready. ... And it's the same about professional and amateur golf. The conversion rate is so small."
"The talent level out there is vast," his brother said. "There are so many good players out there. You'll get there in the morning, and the weather is horrific and some guy will have already shot 63."
Immelman showed quickly that he would not be a victim of the conversion rate. He won his first start on the European Tour's equivalent of the Nationwide Tour on a sponsor's exemption at the Kenya Open. That earned him full status into every event on the Challenge Tour.
The logistics were a nightmare on a tour that traveled to places ranging from Russia to Cuba.
"Traveled all around Europe to the most obscure places you've ever heard of," Immelman said.
"People don't realize how difficult the path is to get to the top," said Immelman's father.
Immelman's path took him back to his home base in London every Sunday night from wherever he'd played. He'd haul his luggage and clubs onto the Underground and take the 45-minute train ride into central London, get back up the escalators and across the street to a hotel. On Mondays, he would have to go to the embassy of whatever country he was playing in next to get his visa for the week.
"Be standing in line to get that done, and it would take the day, pretty much," he said.
On Tuesdays, he would be up before dawn to start the cycle again. It was a lonely existence on the road, only occasionally broken up by company from his brother or his girlfriend, Carminita.
"I did this week after week after week," he said. "That was tough, and it made me tough. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, because you went from being the big fish in a small pond to turning pro. I basically had to suck it up and take it like a man and do it the hard way. I figured out things about my game playing week after week."
Said his brother: "That's how the foreign guys grow up. It's a tough school. They make them tough over there."
"I always like to see a young man struggle," Player said. "I don't like to see them have everything put on a golden platter in front of him. And he had to struggle, and I think that's all the better for him."
The payoff came at the end of a bizarre week in Cuba at the Challenge Tour Grand Final. All 45 players in the field took the same flight Monday, and after a three-hour wait in the passport line they discovered that nobody's luggage, including clubs, made it. The airline didn't deliver them until Thursday.
"They postponed the start of the tournament to Friday, and we played 27 Friday, 27 Saturday and 18 Sunday," Immelman said. "It was the weirdest end. We had a great party in Cuba. It was awesome."
Especially since Immelman finished 10th on the money list and secured his 2001 European Tour card.
From there it was a steady climb. He became the first golfer since Player to win consecutive South African Opens, in 2003-04. In 2004, Immelman won his first European Tour event at the Deustche Bank-SAP Open, triggering a breakout 2005 season when he finished in the top 20 in three majors, earned his PGA Tour card and was selected by Player to compete on the International Presidents Cup team.
In 2006, he defeated Tiger Woods to win the Western Open and was named the PGA Tour's rookie of the year.
"That's the beauty about the game of golf," his father said. "There's so many ways to get there."
Masters win
Immelman arrived at Augusta last April well off anybody's radar. One year before, he'd fought to make the Masters cut despite contracting an intestinal parasite two days before the tournament. It cost him five weeks and 25 pounds and hijacked much of his form.
"All in all it was a fairly disappointing season," he said.
Once he got his game back in the fall and won the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa, he was hit with another setback and major surgery to remove a benign tumor on his diaphragm.
Despite breaking 70 only twice all season and missing his fourth cut the week before in Houston, Immelman and his family were confident going into the 2008 Masters.
"I was convinced the entire week he was going to do it," his brother said.
His father cited Scripture -- Psalm 37:4 -- that buoyed the family's spirit: Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart .
"I think we as a family felt Trevor had a lot of peace that week," Johan Immelman said. "We just knew that this was going to be a very special week. We just had peace."
Three consecutive rounds in the 60s had Immelman atop the leaderboard every day. After missing the cut, Els watched the third round and felt compelled to call Immelman to share what he saw.
"I thought he was swinging the best of all the guys they showed that day," Els said. "I called him, and I said exactly that to him. I don't know how much he took in, but I just wanted him to know that."
"That meant a lot to me," Immelman said. "When you're in the heat of the battle, you don't always know what the other players are doing. He just wanted to let me know that I was playing the best golf, that I deserved to be on top of the leaderboard, that I needed to just go out there on Sunday and do the same thing, and I would be fine."
Despite stiff winds and tough conditions Sunday, Immelman built a five-shot lead in Amen Corner and through the 15th hole.
Then he hit his tee shot in the pond on the par-3 16th, and the peace was temporarily shattered -- even for his wife, Carminita, who was tending to their son and not watching.
"When he hit it in the water on 16, all of the sudden it got really quiet, and nobody wanted to make eye contact with me," she said. "I knew exactly what it meant to Trevor just as what it meant to any golfer. But it's not over until the last hole, and he's still got a lot of golf to play. He's playing well, and he can only do what he can do."
Immelman wasn't watching the leaderboards.
"I knew that I was leading; I didn't know by how many," he said. "Made double, and even when I was walking off the green I was getting a standing ovation. So I knew I was obviously doing OK."
When his best drive of the week on No. 18 found a deep divot in the middle of the fairway, Immelman still managed to knock it on the green. Only then did he ask his caddie, Neil Wallace, how he stood.
"You can enjoy it," Wallace told him of the three-shot lead on Woods.
Immelman two-putted for par, and finished at 8-under-par 280 for the tournament.
"That's a pretty awesome feeling, seeing your son coming up the 18th fairway with nobody near him," his father said.
Sinking in
"I've always given so much respect to the history of the game and the guys who have gone before me and won that tournament that, for a long time, it was difficult for me to see myself in that space," Immelman said. "It took a little time for me to get over all that and start digesting it."
Immelman's achievement is often thrust in front of him by autograph seekers with Masters 2008 flags.
"When you start getting introduced on tee boxes as the Masters champion, it's a pretty incredible feeling," he said. "So it starts to sink in slowly but surely."
His brother isn't surprised by the way he's handled it all.
"Seeing himself as a Masters champion took a little time," Mark said. "To us, Masters champions are legends of the game, and legends don't hit bad shots. But the one thing about Trevor is he's pretty comfortable with who he is, and I think he'll take it in stride."
Dealing with the aftermath took a toll on his game. He hasn't won since, though he reached a playoff two months later in Memphis before losing.
"After he won the Masters, he didn't play to the level that I expected him to," Player said. "There was a big change in his life. He had more freedom, and now he's in demand. I said to him, 'That changed your life for the better. Everybody plays to try to get in the position where you get decent contracts and try to get some money in the bank. That's a plus, but it's an adjustment.' "
"I've told Trevor this is a career-defining moment," his brother said. "Everyone talks about justifying your victory, but I don't care. There are some great champions who've only won one major championship. I know lots of golfers who would trade various tournaments for a green jacket. We were sitting at the house drinking coffee, and I said, 'You could pull the hand brake up on your career now and you would go down as a great achiever.' "
At 29, Immelman is just getting started. Being a Masters champion bears a certain responsibility. Player has carried the mantle for South Africa for nearly 50 years. Now it's Immelman's turn.
"This is our thank you to you for what you're going to do for us," Masters Chairman Billy Payne told Immelman while presenting him with a gift during the champion's reception.
He discovered what Payne meant when he returned to South Africa in December, where the crowds greeted him with enthusiasm usually reserved for Player and Els.
"It was a real show of support from people," said his brother, who caddied for him at the South African Open. "Ernie is still South Africa's darling, and how can you not love Ernie? But I saw the public over there warm to Trevor."
Fans crowded around him after the round, seeking autographs, and Immelman patiently signed every one for more than an hour and a half. He signed more in the parking lot before he could leave.
"It was fantastic to hear the roar when I was announced on the tee as the Masters champion," Immelman said. "For any athlete, the ultimate is getting recognized by your home country. You grow up, and those are the things you dream of. So to be recognized by your own people is very satisfying. Those are the type of moments that I really enjoyed."
Immelman has lived up to the words he told his parents 23 years ago.
"There's a very small percentage of people who can see it very clearly that they were put on this planet to win something like this," said Bob Rotella, his sports psychologist. "When you win it, most of the time you've allowed yourself to believe you could."
Immelman had the vision and the talent, and those closest to him marvel at the way it's all come true.
"It's pretty awesome to see his dreams coming to fruition," said Carminita. "How many kids do you see say they want to play golf and it never works out? His story is working out. He put all the work in, and it's working out."
Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.
Masters Record
| Year | Place | Score | Round | Money | |||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||||
| 2008 | 1 | -8 | 68 | 68 | 69 | 75 | $ 1,350,000 |
| 2007 | 55 | 21 | 74 | 77 | 81 | 77 | $ 16,530 |
| 2006 | 60 | 7 | 75 | 76 | $ 0 | ||
| 2005 | 5 | -4 | 73 | 73 | 65 | 73 | $ 237,300 |
| 2004 | 79 | 9 | 77 | 76 | $ 0 | ||
| 1999 | 56 | 17 | 72 | 76 | 78 | 79 | $ 0 |
