There was never any doubt about the class of Martin Kaymer. You don’t win a couple of majors without the game, and nerves of steel to go along with it.
As a frontrunner in the game, there are very few who come close to Kaymer. He wobbled hard in 2008 when on the verge of winning his first professional title in Abu Dhabi, he shot a nervy 74 that allowed Henrik Stenson to come within four shots of him in the end.
But thereafter, Kaymer displayed German perfection in how to stay ahead when ahead. His 2011 win in Abu Dhabi and his US Open victory last year at Pinehurst No2 were classic examples of how leads should be protected.
However, that veneer of invincibility was brutally stripped off Kaymer when two Sundays ago, he had one of the biggest implosions in the history of the game on a course where previously he could do no wrong. In Abu Dhabi again, Kaymer started the final round six ahead of his nearest rival, and three birdies in the first four holes helped him stretch that to 10 shots. Surely, he could not have lost from there.
But Kaymer did.
And it was evident on that Sunday that we were dealing with a man of immense mental strength. Anyone in his place would have gone mental and perhaps justifiably broken a few clubs and things in the locker room, refused to interact with the media and fans and sulked.
The dignified Kaymer did nothing of the sort.
It’s remarkable how well he has handled himself these last few days. How he has spoken about his issues, analysed them with people close to him, and seems to have come out of the entire introspection process with definite answers and takeaways that will help him perform even better in the future.
It would have been easy to blame everything on external factors, like luck. But Kaymer took full responsibility for what happened, blamed himself for most of his troubles, and is back on the golf course with a smile on his face.
During the course of the final day’s play in Abu Dhabi, precisely around the time Kaymer made his first bogey on the sixth hole and saw his lead go down marginally, the television production guys decided to take the Falcon Trophy closer to the action.
The trophy was carried around and kept at places on the next couple of holes where Kaymer would cross it, making it a foreground or a background for a tv picture when he was playing his shots. The broadcast kept implying that the trophy was already Kaymer’s even though almost two-thirds of the holes were still to be played in the final round. While it may have made for some good pictures on the TV screen, it wasn’t the right thing to do. It was forcing Kaymer to start thinking ahead subconsciously. That was also the time when his troubles started.
The fact that he couldn’t make birdies on the par-5 eighth and 10th holes was as crucial as the double bogey he made on the ninth, followed by the triple on the 13th.
This surely was in the back of Kaymer’s mind as well, because when I pointed it out to him, it was the only time in that entire press conference that the German seemed a little flustered. He even said he almost fell over the trophy, and that it was “not very nice of the people to do that”.
But Kaymer checked himself just as quickly, and steered the blame towards himself again. If his mind wandered, or if his confidence turned into over-confidence, only he was guilty of letting it happen.
One person with whom he compared himself was the world No1 Rory McIlroy and how he capitulated on the back nine of the 2011 Masters despite heading into the final round four shots clear of his nearest rival.
That meltdown actually made McIlroy stronger and he came back in rip-roaring fashion within two months, winning the US Open at Congressional in all kinds of record-breaking fashion.
McIlroy himself completely agreed with Kaymer’s assessment that it was perhaps the biggest learning experience of his entire career, and he even wondered if he would have achieved all the success he had thereafter, if not for those dramatic moments at Augusta.
Let’s hope a similar fate awaits Martin Kaymer.
