Apr 14, 2008, 12:36 GMT
Johannesburg - South African sports fans were quietly exultant Monday after countryman Trevor Immelman became the first South African to win the US Masters since the legendary Gary Player did so 30 years ago.
Trevor Immelman of South Africa celebrates after sinking the final putt to win the 2008 Masters Tournament at Augusta National in Augusta, Georgia, USA 13 April 2008. Immelman shot three over par for the day with a total of eight-under-par for the tournament. EPA/MATT CAMPBELL
However, there was no sign of the euphoria generated by, for example, a major rugby victory.
At the Parkview Golf Club in Johannesburg Daniel Nathan, an acquaintance of Immelman, admitted he fell asleep while watching the game on cable television late into Sunday night
The players were on the '9th or 10th hole and Trevor was three or four shots ahead,' Nathan said, from behind the steering wheel of his parked white jeep outside the club, where he was chatting to a friend.
'If I had been awake when he put on that green jacket, I would have cried,' said Nathan, who said he knew Immelman from playing golf as a kid - Nathan's father was involved in the South Africa's Sunshine Tour of which Immelman's father was commissioner - and remembers a 'down to earth, humble guy.'
The club was closed as always on Mondays for maintenance but the manager, who came to open the clubhouse to a group of elderly women who walk on the course use the bathroom, conveyed the following terse reaction in a note: 'Absolutely fantastic.'
'I think he (Immelman) is going to be good,' Greg McFarlane, a South-African born US consultant, who was making some purchases at the Sweatshop sports shop in Rosebank district, said.
Going to be? 'He IS good,' McFarlane, who was dressed in a shirt and tie and watched the game up until the 12th or 13th hole, conceded with a smile. 'He's making his run.'
'Imagine that. The rookies of the year in 2006 and 2007 playing together in the final round, one winning, the other tieing for third,' the owner of the shop, Jax Snyman, interjected referring to Immelman and playing partner Brandt Snedeker respectively.
Snyman, who was wearing a T-shirt and white polyester shorts, describes himself as a keen sportsman but not a golfer. Yet he followed the game until the 16th hole, when Immelman double-bogeyed the par-three.
'But he was far in front by then. It was great to see him win,' he adds.
Several people mentioned Immelman's recent operation for a benign tumour on his diaphragm.
'Cancer scare drives Immelman,' the headline a story on the inside cover of Johannesburg's The Star newspaper read, describing how Immelman had had to pull out of the South African Open in December over chest pains caused by the tumour.
'That kind of thing focuses the mind,' said Synman.
South Africa's most famous golfer and Immelman's mentor Player, whom Immelman talked of emotionally minutes after his victory, was also on many lips.
'I first met him when I was 5 years old, at my home club in Somerset West. I have a great picture - he picked me up and put me on his shoulders. I have no teeth. That was the first time I met him,' Immelman said.
In 1978, the sportsman dubbed the Black Knight was the first ever non-US golfer and first South African to win the green jacket, Snyman points out. Player could not be immediately contacted for comment.
Outside of golfing circles, however, even armchair sports fans seemed to have little interest in the Masters.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa phoned four sports bars around South Africa shortly after the game ended. Three did not answer. At the fourth, the Planet Sports Bar in Cape Town which often carries international sporting events live on big screens, the TV was off because, the night manager said, there was no interest in golf.
Instead the patrons were kicking their heels to karaoke.
'Everything's soccer, soccer, soccer,' said Sharon Sabbatini, mother of Rory Sabbatini who won this year's Masters Par-Three tournament and tied for second in last year's Masters alongside U.S. star Tiger Woods.
'Most people were watching English soccer last night.'
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