Random thoughts in the wake of an unlikely Open Championship...

What's the deal with Ernie Els?

Ernie Els' last major win was the 2002 British Open. David Cannon/Getty Images

One of the themes from my U.S. Open story in the June 28 issue of Sports Illustrated was Ernie Els' perplexing fragility, and after Sunday at Troon you gotta wonder if he's suffered some kind of irreversible brain damage. In the last seven years Els has won just one major and lost about a dozen of 'em. The amount of scar tissue is incalculable. He's one signature self-immolation away from being certified as the Greg Norman of his generation, though that whiffed birdie putt on the 72nd hole on Troon will linger for a long time.

For a while Els could blame Tiger Woods' transcendence for his futility in the majors, but Easy's victory at the '02 Open Championship began Woods's lull. (Even that win featured a near-disaster, as Els double-bogeyed the 70th hole to blow the lead and managed to prevail in a playoff largely due to the kindness of others.)

The last two years should have belonged to Els, but if anything he's regressed. Els hit it all over the lot on Sunday, but holed a mile of putts to hang in there. Even so, it's not his swing that so consistently lets him down, it's "the head", as they say in Britain. Every time I see Els at the majors I'm struck by how he is endlessly shadowed by Jos Vanstiphout, the failed Belgian pop singer who has become a self-styled "mental coach." Jos falls somewhere between snake charmer and shaman, and for Els to be leaning ever more heavily on this crutch really makes me wonder. The two men playing the best golf in the majors right now are Phil Mickelson and Retief Goosen, and neither uses a sports psychologist. Nor does Woods. Grand Slam Sundays are played largely between the ears. Having lost three straight majors, Els needs to seriously sort out what's going on in his head.

Speaking of Phil...

Mickelson's reinvention continues to amaze. No doubt he spent the whole flight home stewing on a Grand missed opportunity, but I thought his performance at Troon was as impressive in its own way as what he did at Augusta. Even the Old Phil was a consistent threat at the Masters, but the British Open had always exposed his flaws-a one-dimensional ball flight and a high-risk short game that often. For him to play the last three rounds with only one bogey was simply astonishing. I can't wait to see what he does next year at the Old Course.

Of course, the one bogey Phil made over the final 54 holes on the back nine on Sunday at a crucial juncture. The back-nine 31 at the Masters has bought him some street cred, but the next time Mickelson's fighting it out for a major he needs to close the deal. Otherwise Jos is going to start circling...

Pulling Rank

Let us dream for a moment that World Ranking computers in London were infected with a crippling virus, and the pro golf establishment did the sensible thing and put me in charge of the rankings. This would be my top 10. (Actual World Ranking is in parenthesis.)

1. Mickelson (4)
2. Goosen (6)
3. Els (2)
4. Woods (1)
5. Vijay Singh (3)
6. Adam Scott (11)
7. Sergio Garcia (10)
8. Chad Campbell (13)
9. Stuart Appleby (15)
10. Davis Love (5)

Top 50 update

I hadn't played Turnberry in five years, and kinda forgotten how magical that place is. Holes 4-11, hugging the coast, are as good, or better, than any stretch of golf anywhere. The R & A needs to solve the age-old traffic issues and get Turnberry in the rota more often, especially ahead of some of those dog tracks they use in England.

Not that anyone cares, but now that I've had a trans-Atlantic flight to anguish, I've bumped Turnberry from 14 to 12 on my top 50 golf courses.

A grand don't come cheap

	MAILBAG Alan Shipnuck will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

I've pulled off some pretty good boondoggles in my 10 years at SI. Making myself the Euro Tour correspondent for a month -- which just happened to coincide with national championships in France, Spain and Portugal -- was pretty good. Coming up with a club-testing story that allowed me to spend three weeks hitting balls in front of computers at the headquarters of Ping, Cleveland, Callaway, Titleist, TaylorMade and Nike was also rather tasty. But I think I topped myself last week. Selling the story as an exploration into the culture of the Open, and an anthropological examination of a betting society, I talked my editors into giving me 1,000 pounds to punt on the action at Troon (punting being British slang for betting, but you already knew that.)

I don't want to give away too much from the story, which appears in this week's GolfPlus, but I will share a fascinating little episode from the third round, in which I wagered 617 pounds on two-balls, in which you pick who will have the lower score in a given pairing.

I let it ride on 18 different two-balls, but one matchup was truly thrilling: Keiichiro Fukabori vs. Tetsuji Hiratsuka. As soon as I saw the pairing I knew it was my destiny. I had never heard of either player but vowed to put 100 pounds on the match. Part of the lure of punting is that it makes you care about otherwise insignificant golfers, and in an ordinary scan of the pairing sheet I would have skipped this group as soon as I came to the fifth vowel. With so much money at stake, I set about doing my research.

Turns out both Fukabori and Hiratsuka are both strong players on the Japan Tour. Fukabori, 35, won last year's Japan Open with a scorching final round 64, his sixth-career victory. Hiratsuka, 32, had won twice in the past eight months and was second on this year's money list. In perusing the Open stats through two rounds I discovered Fukabori was 7th in driving distance, but 121st in putting, while Hiratsuka was 17th in putting but 155th in driving distance. With strong winds forecast for the third round, I liked the longer hitter. Also, when I asked a respected Japanese reporter what he thought of Hiratsuka he put his finger to his ear and twirled, the universal sign for "cuckoo." The dye was cast: 100 pounds on Fukabori.

Both Fukabori and Hiratsuka are 5-foot-9, and dressed in similar dark colors it took me two holes to figure who was who. Their match was a thriller. Hiratsuka displayed a wizardly short game, repeatedly saving par with unlikely up-and-downs. Fukabori, 40 yards longer off the tee, attacked the course, but often squandered birdie chances with a shaky putter.

When Hiratsuka bogeyed 17 the match was all square, and I was overcome with a sickening realization: I should have bet the tie, at 15/2. Two mystery men, similar records ... what was I thinking? I staggered down the 18th fairway in a fog of regret. It goes without saying both players made two-putt pars, shooting identical 70s and costing me 100 quid.

Afterward, Hiratsuka gave a press conference for 19 reporters. I was the only Westerner. Through a translator I asked him if he had any words of consolation for me. "It was a very bad bet," he said with a huge grin. "I feel sorry for you."

Senior writer Alan Shipnuck has covered golf for Sports Illustrated since 1994 and frequently contributes to SI.com.