Scotland - George Coetzee stepped out of the warm sunshine that enveloped the Old Course on Tuesday ahead of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship beginning on Thursday and climbed the stairs into the huge mobile physio unit that accompanies the European Tour.
“The ankle is a lot better but still isn’t 100 percent,” he said of the fracture he suffered early in September last year while surfing in Bali. When he jumped off his board into water he didn’t realise was only ankle deep he broke his left fibula which brought to a premature end a terrific season on the fairways of the world.
He had won twice on the European Tour in 2015 - in the Tshwane Open and the Mauritius Open. And in August, shortly before the surfing accident, he had placed seventh in the US PGA, his best finish in a Major Championship. In short, things were going along pretty well for the then 29-year-old who was in contention for a place in the International Team for the Presidents Cup.
“The ankle did set me back and this year hasn’t been a great one, not by a long shot,” said Coetzee who has missed eight cuts on the European Tour alone. “But having the injury did allow me to work on parts of my game I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t broken the ankle and I now feel I can see light at the end of the tunnel.”
And the powerful golfer is particularly fond of At Andrews and the Old Course because it was here in 2012, in the final round of that year’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, that he equalled the course record of this grand old lady of golf, with all its hundreds of years of history, with a sizzling 10-under-par 62.
“So I’ve done it before which means I can do it again, so I’m feeling positive and we’ll just see how it goes,” he insisted.
Coetzee is one of 22 South Africans playing in this tournament, with its $5-million prize fund, and just outside the physio unit - on the practice putting green - his compatriot Trevor Fisher jnr was working on those testing four and five-footers he is likely to face this week on the Old Course, as well as Kingsbarns and Carnoustie in this festival of links golf.
It hasn’t been the best of seasons for Fish” either. “So,” he said, “with three more tournaments to go (on the 2016 European Tour) I need to make some putts and finish the season on a high.” Fisher, who has one European Tour victory to his name - in the Africa Open at East London Golf Club - looked up at blue sky and said he hoped it stays like this all week. “I’ve got unlucky with the draw, weather-wise, in past years here and still haven’t made the cut. But if it’s like this all week luck, or rather bad luck, won’t be a factor.”
The Star