Second Coming

2008 Masters winner Trevor Immelmantalks about his 20-year career andeye-catching return to form this year.

- Jeremy Ellwood

It’s the Monday after Francesco’s Open Championship victory and, as in previous years, I find myself a media guest at the 2018 Berenberg Gary Player Invitational at Wentworth. The Black Knight has, as ever, assembled a star-studded golfing cast to take part in his annual extravaganza to raise funds for charity.

A few weeks earlier I had said to the GM team that we should look to catch up with Trevor Immelman after seeing his name pop up in various European Tour events this season for the first time in ages. Then, the week before The Open, the South African, who won the 2008 Masters by three strokes, incredibly finished T3rd up at Gullane in the Scottish Open – his best result for many a moon, and one that almost earned him a spot at Carnoustie, denied only by the world ranking of Jens Dantorp who also finished T3rd.

Immelman turned pro in 1999, played Challenge Tour in 2000 and finished top ten there thanks largely to his victory in the Tusker Kenya Open by four shots from a certain Henrik Stenson. That earned him promotion to the European Tour where he spent the early part of his career, winning three times before making the PGA Tour his main base from 2006 onwards. He had already hit a career-high 12th in the World Rankings some time before that memorable week at Augusta in 2008, where he led wire-to-wire and could even afford the luxury of a final-round 75 and still win by three from Tiger.