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Out of South Africa
Open win propels Goosen's rank from 40th to top 10
Posted: Saturday April 06, 2002 8:25 PM
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Retief Goosen putts for bogey on the 18th green of the U.S. Open at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla. Goosen went on to win the 2001 championship. AP |
By David Westin
The Augusta Chronicle
A long-term self-improvement plan has carried South Africa's Retief Goosen to the elite level of professional golf in the past year.
He's cracked the top 10 in the Official World Ranking, a place he expects to make his permanent home.
In contrast, Goosen was 40th in the ranking after the 2001 Masters.
"I'm looking forward to the year to see if I can improve on the past year," he said. "That's been my main goal, to try to improve every year.
"It's the kind of goal you can only set yourself. You try to think you have a chance to win every week."
Since the mid-1990s, Ernie Els has been considered the South African most likely to win the Masters.
Now he's been joined by Goosen in that category. Gary Player, a three-time Masters champion, is the only South African to win the tournament.
"He's a world-class player right now," Els said of Goosen. "He's got a lot of confidence. People should actually do themselves a favor and watch him play. You'll see a class player. He's come a long way, but he's always had the talent."
Since June, when he won the U.S. Open in an 18-hole playoff with Mark Brooks, Goosen has won five times around the world, counting a team event with Els.
"It's been great," Goosen said. "I suppose that's what we all work for out there on the range every day, hoping that you can win events, and I've been lucky now to win quite a few in the past few months."
Goosen's victory in the European Tour's 2001 season-concluding Madrid Open earned him that tour's Order of Merit award as its leading money winner. As a result, he was granted a rare lifetime exemption on the European Tour.
Also in 2001, he teamed with Els to lead South Africa to victory in the World Cup.
For the first time in his 12-year professional career, Goosen is a member of both the European and PGA tours. His U.S. Open victory earned him exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2006.
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Goosen, of South Africa, kisses the winner's trophy on the 18th green at Southern Hills Country Club. AP |
"It's going to be tough this year, playing on both tours," he said. "I'm only playing 15 events over here and then enough back home (11 on the European Tour) to keep my card over there. I want to keep supporting the tour over there, as well."
Splitting time between tours will make it difficult for Goosen to repeat as the leader on the European Tour's money list.
"It's going to be a bit of a challenge," he said. "The world events and the majors count toward the Order of Merit, so I'm really going to have to play well in those to keep my prize money up there. I'll see how it goes. If I'm not playing that well, I may go over there (Europe) to play a few more extra events to give myself a chance."
This season, Goosen has won back-to-back events overseas. He captured the European Tour's Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth, Australia, and the South African Tour's Dimension Data event.
"It's nice to see all the hard work is paying off," he said. "There were times when you wonder, 'Is it going to happen?' It's all coming together now."
In the Johnnie Walker Classic, Goosen dominated the field, shooting 14-under-par 274 to win by eight shots, prompting Sergio Garcia to say, "What Retief is doing is possible, but to do it, you have to be playing almost perfect golf."
Goosen knows he needs to improve on his Masters record. In three starts, he's missed the cut twice and finished tied for 40th. The fact that putting has been a strength of his game this season bodes well for him at Augusta National Golf Club.
"I haven't played well there," Goosen said. "Last year I had an injury (a pulled chest muscle), and I probably shouldn't have played. This year hopefully I'll give myself a bit better chance.
"It all comes down to putting during a week to win a tournament. I'm not going to try to win every major. But if you try and win every week you play, it might be a major week, it might not be. It might be a small event back in South Africa, but a win is a win. You've got to play really well wherever you play in the world now to win an event."
It was his off-the-course work with sports psychologist Jos Vanstiphout of Belgium that turned Goosen into a world-class player. The two first hooked up nearly four years ago.
"I still see him now and then," Goosen said. "We all go through the same things we used to do and a few new things here and there. It helps keep me going when I get a bit down."
"When Retief first came to see me, he was suffering from both a lack of confidence in his own ability and a deep frustration at his failure to do better than he was," Vanstiphout told Golf World magazine. "Having grown up with Ernie Els and been competitive with him, Retief couldn't understand why, when Ernie's career took off, his didn't do the same. When Ernie should have been a source of motivation, he was, at the time, more of a frustration for Retief."
The process of removing that frustration is over, Vanstiphout said. The U.S. Open trophy Goosen owns is proof of that.
"His mental approach is a lot stronger than it's ever been, and he really trusts his swing," Els said of Goosen. "When you have that going for you, you can really go places."
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