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Wed 07 Jul 2007Els ready for the 'toughest of the whole lot'In his first British Open, as an amateur, Ernie Els missed the cut. It was to be his one and only time to suffer such a fate; and, in his professional days, very few players - with the exception of Tiger Woods - have played as consistently well in this major as the South African with the languid swing.Els has played this major on 16 occasions, and recorded nine top-10 finishes. Yet, for a player known as "The Big Easy", his one and only win came the hard way: he was involved in a four-man play-off involving Stuart Appleby, Steve Elkington and Thomas Levet at Muirfield in 2002, finally getting the better of Levet in sudden death after the two Aussies had been eliminated at the end of the initial four play-off holes.