Quail Hollow was key to Immelman's success

Trevor Immelman didn’t scowl or mope after losing the 2006 Wells Fargo Championship. He’d just three-putted Quail Hollow’s 18th green and bogeyed the first playoff hole, but Immelman revealed a commendable perspective in his post-round comments.

“There’s a lot more less fortunate people in the world than myself, and I would find it pretty stupid of me to handle it any other way,” he said. “I’m 26 years old, and I think I made a big step in my career today.”

A big step, indeed.

Though Immelman didn’t earn a trophy that Sunday, he believes his performance was the start of a run that saw him reach the upper echelon of the game, one that culminated with a green jacket. Quail Hollow has played a big role in his career, and it will again next year when he returns as the captain of the Presidents Cup’s International Team.

He won the Western Open less than two months after his tough loss to Jim Furyk at Quail Hollow and eventually was named the PGA TOUR’s Rookie of the Year that season, ending the year ranked 12th in the world. The next year, he won the star-studded Nedbank Challenge in his native South Africa, and in 2008, he became a major champion with his three-shot win at the Masters.

Tiger Woods was runner-up in both of Immelman’s PGA TOUR victories, making him one of just five men whom Woods has finished second to multiple times. The others are either in the World Golf Hall of Fame or headed there soon: Phil Mickelson (five times), Vijay Singh (three), Ernie Els (twice), Furyk (twice) and Immelman (twice).

Woods was the most recent U.S. Presidents Cup captain, leading the Americans to a win in December at Royal Melbourne. No announcement has been made about who will lead the host team in 2021. Immelman’s appointment as the leader of the International Team was announced earlier this month, as he takes the reins from another South African, Ernie Els.

The International Team has lost all seven of the Presidents Cup played on U.S. soil, but Immelman hopes to change that at a course he knows well and a town (Charlotte, North Carolina) he visits often.

Immelman holds Quail Hollow in high regard, and not just because of the close call there that led to PGA TOUR success. One of his closest friends, Rich Davies, lives on the course. Davies, a fellow South African, was a kicker on the Clemson football team in the 1980s. Immelman has joined him as a fan of the school’s successful football program. Immelman can’t count how many times he’s played Quail Hollow while visiting Davies.

“It’s a place that’s very special to me for many reasons,” he said. “To be able to be captain of the International Team at a place that I’ve always loved is pretty cool. It’s icing on the cake, really.”

Immelman made his Presidents Cup debut in 2005. He finished fifth in that year’s Masters and had another top-10 at the RBC Canadian Open to earn his first PGA TOUR card. His rookie season got off to a slow start, though. He missed four consecutive cuts in March and April.

The last event in that stretch proved that a turning point is never be far away. He was 5 over for the first 27 holes of the RBC Heritage, far enough from the cut line that it was no longer a concern. Playing without a care about results, Immelman played the final nine holes in a bogey-free 33.

“Throughout my career, the thing that held me back the most is myself,” he said recently. “I would put so much heat on myself that a lot of times it would be like playing with the hand-brake pulled halfway up.

“I played that back nine (at Harbour Town) with total freedom. That was the catalyst for me. I had done so much work on my game, but mentally I was really holding myself back. Once I found a way to free it up, I let that work shine through.”

It started the next week with an 11th-place finish in Houston. Then, a third-round 66 left him one shot out of the lead at Quail Hollow. He played alongside Singh and Stuart Appleby that day. Singh was ranked 4th in the world. Appleby had already won twice that season, including two weeks earlier in Houston.

“I felt like I played well under extreme pressure,” Immelman said shortly after. “That kind of cemented the fact that I’m where I want to be.”

The next day, he shot 70 while playing with Furyk and Retief Goosen. Birdies on 13 and 15 gave Immelman a one-shot lead on the 18th tee. It was cold and rainy that day, and he was left with a 4-iron into the final green. He hit it to 50 feet, but three-putted for bogey and lost to Furyk’s par on the first playoff hole.

“Losing the playoff was so disappointing, but it absolutely showed me I could compete because that was one of the biggest tournaments of the year,” Immelman says. “I started building confidence.”

He was runner-up again in his next start, at the AT&T Byron Nelson. Then he holed a 30-foot birdie putt to win the Western Open by two shots over Woods and Mathew Goggin. Two years later, Woods finished three behind Immelman at the Masters.

It was his performance at Quail Hollow that set the stage for that success.