Ernie Els helped top-ranked amateur Jovan Rebula prepare for his opening round at the 2019 Masters with a telephone call and a breakdown of the course, writes WADE PRETORIUS.
The Big Easy, twice runner-up in his 23 Masters starts, is the uncle of the reigning Amateur champion, who acquitted himself nicely with an opening 73.
Rebula revealed how his uncle talked him through the course with advice on every hole of the famed championship layout.
‘He actually called me the last night [Wednesday] and just talked about the experience over here,’ said Rebula, one of six South Africans in the field.
‘Then this morning, he actually phoned me while we were having breakfast and he told me to get my yardage book out, and we went through each and every hole [with] some piece of advice that he would give me and I got it all down in there, so hopefully that will work out here because you need a lot of information out on this golf course for sure.’
Rebula is one of six amateurs in the field, and is joined by two others a stroke behind Norway’s Victor Hovland. He admits he is chasing not only the cut line.
‘It would mean the world to make the weekend.We are out here to compete for the Low Amateur Award, and that’s something that’s been on my mind for a while, but at the same time you want to, me personally with the competitiveness that I have, everywhere I tee it up you try and win a golf tournament. So we set high goals for this week, but I think the highest goal is definitely just to go out and enjoy every part of the experience,’ he said.
While Els watches from afar, [members of] the generation he brought up competitively have been assisting Rebula since Monday.
‘I got the chance to play with Branden and Charl and Justin Harding, on Monday we got to play nine holes together,’ said Rebula.
‘I haven’t seen Louis yet, but the guys have been really good to me when it comes to preparing for this golf course and stuff like that. So, yeah, I mean I’m just very thankful for the way that they treat me as an amateur over here, it’s something that I’m really thankful for.’
