"Shrek" eclipses mentor Ernie Els and makes name for himself

FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH WEBSITE
By Ian Chadband, Chief Sports Correspondent at St Andrews
Show of hands. Did anyone want to speak to Louis Oosthuizen, the man in the press tent wanted to know on Thursday evening after the South African had shot a brilliant 65 in the teeth of the worst conditions of the opening day.
There was barely a taker, the lack of enthusiasm quite deafening since everyone was too busy swooning over young Rory Mac and his 63.
By Friday lunchtime, though, it was all very different. Having watched him forge three shots clear of the field after a round of 67 which was, if anything, even more extraordinary than his opening salvo, the media corps were desperate to unearth any tiny nugget about a figure so unheralded that when he was introduced at his press conference, the moderator confused him with the English ex-pro and now distinguished commentator Peter Oosterhuis.
Oosthuizen claws back McIlroy's lead So, who was this Peter Oosthuizen? Sorry. Check. Make that Louis Oosthuizen. Or to give him his grandad’s full name, Lodewicus Theodorus Oosthuizen. Or to profer the moniker given by his best mates, Shrek. “Er, you can’t choose your friends,” he explained winningly with the gap toothed smile which apparently earned him the comparison with Hollywood’s favourite green ogre.
So what was going on here? This, after all, was a 27 year-old with a record about as bad as it gets in major championships. Until now, he had played in eight, failed to make the cut in seven - including his three previous Opens - and had a best placing of 73rd in the US PGA a couple of years ago.
And yet now here was a bloke who absolutely hates playing in the rain overcoming one of the soggiest starts imaginable to a round at the crack of dawn yesterday to triumph over both the weather and his own demons.
Fifteen birdies over 36 holes. No wonder the boy from Mossel Bay could barely stop grinning, bearing the air of a fellow in dreamland. Even when asked, at this preposterously premature stage, if he could imagine the vuvuzuelas blowing to greet a South African triumph as he strolled down the 18th on Sunday, he was happy to play along with the fantasy.
For so far this had all the feel of a fairytale written in the rainbow nation. The reason he was in this position at all, Oosthuizen conceded, was down to Ernie Els, the patron who had funded, supported and even mentored him for three years just before he turned pro.
Oosthuizen explained that if it had not been for the support of Els’s foundation, which offers financial backing for talented young South African players, his father, a farmer in the Southern Cape, would probably not have been able to afford to fund his expensive budding career.
“At that stage things weren't going that great on the farm, and we just heard of this foundation which had just started,” explained Oosthuizen. “It was an unbelievable three years with what Ernie did for me, travelling around the country, helping with expenses, giving clinics, things like that. He's such a good mentor, probably without him I wouldn't have been here. It's just nice knowing him; he's just a great, great guy to be around.”
And a great, great guy to eclipse. Els, the 2002 champion, was caught in the afternoon mayhem, shooting a 79 and missing the cut, some 16 shots adrift of his pupil.
Still, the Big Easy’s best piece of advice worked for Oosthuizen. “Stay in the moment,” Els always tells him and that’s what his apprentice took on board when he stood on the second tee yesterday just before 7am.
A perfect St Andrews morning had suddenly been transformed by a violent downpour which would not let up for the next six holes. The wind started howling, leaving Oosthuizen fearful it was going to be one of those hellish mornings when “you've got to focus on where you're pointing the umbrella, otherwise you don't have one”.
Normally, he would struggle in the rain. “But today I got my head around it and was just very proud of the way I handled it out there.”
There was a time for Oosthuizen when he might have reacted very differently but his first European Tour win in the Andalucian Open in March, he felt, had taught him to trust more in the ability which had seen him triumph four times on South Africa’s Sunshine Tour.
So even when things began to go wrong after he had birdied the fifth, sixth and seventh in the downpour, he had the courage to respond instantly with birdies after dropping shots at the 11th and 13th. He got his lucky break when he found the wind behind him on the final few holes and, though on 18 he made a hash of his 60ft approach putt, he still nervelessly sank a 15 footer for birdie.
It all made an absolute mockery of Oosthuizen’s previous failures. “My record wasn't very great, was it?” he smiled. “A matter of not believing myself, I think.”
Is he starting to believe now? “It's everyone's dream to just to win the Open. But to win it at St Andrews, where it all started? You never really think it'll happen.”
Only outside, he could hear the rain beginning to beat wildly against the media tent and he could feel his target getting more brutal by the minute. Like Els once did, he was allowed to enjoy an idle daydream. But a five shot lead? Shrek might just be allowing himself to believe in modern-day fairytales.
Louis Oosthuizen is the most famous graduate of Ernie Els’s foundation since it was set up in 1999, but over the years a number of pros have come through the scheme, which identifies talented teenagers, supervises their coaching, pays for them to travel to tournaments and offers courses in ‘life skills’.
Other notable male graduates include James Kamte, a black South African who has won three times on the Sunshine Tour.
The foundation takes part in the Friendship Cup, an annual match against the members of Tiger Woods’s foundation.