Next week marks the fifth year anniversary of Martin Kaymer capturing the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Wisconsin.
It was Kaymer’s first Major Championship success and just the second by a German-born golfer.
The Dusseldorf-born Kaymer defeated American Bubba Watson in a play-off but only after the controversy that saw Dustin Johnson, who had led with a hole to play, penalised for grounding his club in a bunker despite the sand trap located well behind the spectator ropes being littered with spectator rubbish.
Kaymer proudly accepted the gleaming Rodman Wanamaker Trophy but then struggled dealing with being Germany’s glittering new sports hero.
Kaymer won two more times in 2010 – KLM Open and Alfred Dunhill Links Championship – as well as capturing a third Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship early in 2011.
Martin Kaymer wins the 2010 PGA Championship
However he then found the pressure of having to deal with countless TV interviews and appearances too demanding so much so his form would deterioate.
Kaymer sought to fight the pressure by talking with other German sports stars but then victory would allude him for three years so much so he had slumped from World No. 1 in February 2011 to No. 63 after missing the cut in the 2013 Shell Houston Open.
Of course, he holed the winning putt in the 2012 Ryder Cup but it was not to June last year that Kaymer again stamped his brilliance capturing the Players Championship to move to World No. 28 and less than a month before stamping his enormous talent in winning the 2014 U.S. Open by an amazing eight shots.
Kaymer was back to where he had been in winning the PGA Championship four years earlier and now No. 11 in the world.
Next week he returns to the shores of Lake Michigan not only five years older and aged 30 but better equipped in mind and body to handle any pressure of becoming a three-time Major Champion.
Martin Kaymer in the TPC Sawgrass locker room with his 2014 Players Championship trophy.
“Five years ago winning the PGA Championship for me came after just two or three years on the Tour, and you have other things to deal with first,” he said on the eve of this week’s WGC – Bridgestone Invitational.
“I was thinking about holding onto my card for the next year. I was thinking about where I should go and practice over the winter time.
“I thought what things I could afford to buy but then all of a sudden you are a Major Champion, you become No. 1 in the world and there are no worries anymore because you can practice anywhere and people want you to come and play in their tournaments.”
Kaymer then compared what it would have been like as the 2010 PGA Champion growing up in the U.S. to life in Dusseldorf.
Martin Kaymer is a double Major winner in capturing the 2014 US Open.
“In America golf gets good coverage and I would have been seen on TV when I was say 15 or 16 years old, so I would have got slowly into the spotlight,” he said.
“So maybe it would have been a little bit easier to handle, even though maybe you are not prepared for the spotlight.
“But for me growing up in Germany it was completely new to me as I was not on a TV show chipping golf balls into a washing machine.
“When you have a Formula One driver who wins 80% of his races or you have a German football team that wins a lot of matches it’s fine but when you become the No. 1 golfer in the world, and then you don’t win, a top-10 is seen as a disappointment.
“And if I was to miss a cut you can’t describe it. It is like all the world is down on you, so at age 25 it was difficult to handle all of that.
“But now it is all different. Whatever the request I get I say it is fine. I just don’t care. The people who really understand you are the people who know why you play this game and if you do miss cuts they understand. They are four to five people.
“So I realise how it all works now and it’s fine with me.”
