Immelman's "fantastic day" leads to deserved first victory

July 9, 2006 By Melanie Hauser PGATOUR.com Contributor

LEMONT, Ill. – He was trying to two-putt. Honest.

He wasn’t even looking at the hole. The putt was way too tricky. Thirty feet with three yards of break. He wanted to throw it up there to the right, find the pace and let it curl down toward the cup.

And somehow it went in.

With that, Trevor Immelman looked up, fell to his knees, dropped the putter behind his back and hit the ground. Then he rolled on his back -- with his feet in the air -- went into a rocking jump back up and high-fived his caddie.

He never stopped smiling.

Neither did we.

On a day when everyone -- including Immelman -- kept expecting Tiger Woods to pull off a back-nine miracle, the 26-year-old South African stole our hearts. He went head-to-head with Tiger and Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk down the stretch and won his first PGA TOUR event -- the 103rd and final Cialis Western Open.

He birdied that final hole -- and three of the last four -- to hold off Tiger and Mathew Goggin by two shots and get the first win that eluded him earlier this year at both the Wachovia Championship and the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. He did it with a closing 67, a 13-under-par 271 total and an unbridled joy we so seldom see.

“It’s an incredible feeling,’’ he said. “Obviously it hasn't quite sunk in yet. It was a fantastic day. I really enjoyed every minute of it. Obviously to hole that putt on the last was just it gives me goosebumps thinking about it.’’

Even Tiger had to smile, as he exited the scoring trailer after watching the winning putt fall.

“It was just a matter of time before he won,’’ Tiger said. “I mean he came close at Wachovia this year and obviously he has an inordinate amount of talent.’’

We’ve been talking about it for a while now -- since countryman Ernie Els started talking about him, since he won four international tournaments, since he tied for fifth at the 2005 Masters after a soggy third-round 65. And definitely this year with two close calls -- he three-putted the final hole in Charlotte, then lost to Furyk in a playoff and, at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship when, with a chance to catch winner Brett Wetterich, he put it in the water off the tee at the 72nd hole.

Sunday was the culmination. The only thing missing early in the year was his short game, which he fixed after missing the cut at the Verizon Heritage. The next week he tied for 11th at the Shell Houston Open, then came the two runner-up finishes.

"From then on it was just my confidence that grew, and obviously I kept working on my short game, focusing on that, and that's brought me to this point,’’ he said.

If the first thing you notice about Immelman are his sparkling blue eyes -- so deeply rimmed they seem lined in black -- the next thing you notice is the poise. He started the day two shots behind third-round leader Singh and didn’t let anything get to him.

Instead, Immelman played his game, didn’t look at the leader boards -- he didn’t know where he stood until he looked at the 18th hole -- and just had fun.

“You know, that's the fun part because to have guys like that who have been the best players in the world for the last 10 or 15 years, to throw my name in the mix there, it's a pretty fun time for me,’’ he said.

“But I was really just trying to take care of my golf ball and make some birdies and just shoot the best possible round I could.’’

Let’s just say it was a heck of a back nine. He birdied the 10th hole with a wedge to 10 feet to move into the lead, followed it with four straight pars and then made those birdies.

No sweat. No mistakes. No Phil Mickelson-like meltdown. Which, someone pointed out, he had the chance to do coming in.

“You know, in Phil's defense, when you're in that moment, it's words can't describe it,’’ said Immelman, whose father Johann is the commissioner of South Africa’s Sunshine Tour. “It's like you're not in control of your body. It's just such an interesting feeling that sometimes you make you do something and you go, "Why did I do that?" But at that moment, you know, you're not trying to do it; you're trying to do the best thing you can do and sometimes it doesn't work out for you.’’

Immelman learned from what happened in Charlotte and Dallas and, this time, he was rock solid.

“It’s not like you're not in control of your body because you're thinking, okay, I've got to walk, and you manage to do that properly,’’ he said, drawing a laugh. “but I guess there's just so much adrenaline pumping through your body and you've really just got to try to slow your heart rate down and just quiet everything.

“For me I was really falling back on my routine. I was thinking a lot about my targets, where I wanted to hit the ball, the shape I wanted to hit it, and I was really just concentrating and focusing on that and not thinking about any of the end results or thinking about the crowd. ‘’

Until that final putt fell. Then he soaked in everything. And didn’t try to overanalyze.

“This game is so hard to fathom, you don’t try to,’’ he said.

What he will do is head home to Orlando where his wife Carminita is expecting their first child -- a son -- on July 27th.

“I can't wait to get home and spend some time with my wife and enjoy this moment with her,’’ he said. “You make so many sacrifices with your family and with your time that when something like this happens, it's just an incredible feeling."

It’s up in the air whether or not he’ll play in the British Open at Hoylake. He said Carminita has another doctor’s appointment this week and they will decide what to do. They’ve been together since they were 15 and he said he wants to be there for her when their son is born. And to celebrate this sweet win.

An hour after the winning putt fell, he was still shaking his head.

“It was utter disbelief when the ball disappeared,’’ he said. “If I had to stand there with 50 balls and try to do it again, I’d hole one or two of them.’’

He smiled. It didn’t really matter.

The one that counted, the one he was trying to two-putt disappeared.

“I just kept telling myself that I've got to keep doing what I'm doing, keep learning from playing every week, and so you know, that's just what I've been working on, really, just trying to do that,’’ he said. “I knew I wasn't too far off, just waiting for my time to win a tournament. Now that I've done it, it's awesome.’’