Trevor John Immelman (born 16 December 1979) is a South African retired professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

er and television commentator who has played on the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

, European Tour and

Sunshine Tour The Sunshine Tour is a men's professional golf tour based in Southern and East Africa. For much of its early history it was known either as the Southern Africa Tour or Sunshine Circuit; through sponsorship deals, it has also been known as the F ...

. He won his sole major championship at the

2008 Masters Tournament The 2008 Masters Tournament was the 72nd Masters Tournament, held April 10–13 at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. Trevor Immelman won his first Men's major golf championships, major title, three strokes ahead of runner-up Tiger Wo ...

Early life and amateur career

Immelman was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He was born into a golfing family. His father, Johan, is the former commissioner of the

in South Africa, while his older brother Mark is a broadcaster, teaching pro, and collegiate golf coach. He also has an older sister by the name of Michelle Greeff. Trevor took up golf at the age of five. He attended Hottentots Holland High School. Immelman had much success as amateur. He won the South African Amateur Championship in 1997. In 1998, he finished runner-up at the New Zealand Amateur. He also won the U.S. Amateur Public Links in 1998.

Professional career

In 1999, Immelman turned professional. In 2000, he played mainly on the second tier professional tour in Europe, the

Challenge Tour The Challenge Tour, currently titled as the HotelPlanner Tour for sponsorship reasons and also sometimes referred to as the European Challenge Tour, is the second-tier men's professional golf tour in Europe. It is operated by the PGA European To ...

, and finished tenth on the Order of Merit. He became a full member of the European Tour in 2001 and has made the top twenty of the Order of Merit three times. He has four wins on the European Tour and in 2004 became the first man to successfully defend the South African Open title since Gary Player in the 1970s. In 2003, Immelman won the WGC-World Cup for South Africa in partnership with Rory Sabbatini. In 2005 he was a member of the losing International Team at the Presidents Cup. He played with increasing frequency on the

after receiving a 2-year PGA Tour exemption for 2006 and 2007 on account of this Presidents Cup appearance. In 2006 Immelman won his first PGA Tour event at the Cialis Western Open, a result that moved him into the top 15 in the Official World Golf Rankings. He won the

Order of Merit in 2002/03. Immelman withdrew from the 2006 Open Championship to be present for the birth of his first child. He finished 2006 in the top 10 of the PGA Tour money list, was named Rookie of the Year, and reached a career-high world ranking of twelfth. In September 2007, Trevor Immelman was picked by Gary Player to participate in the 7th Presidents Cup held at the Royal Montreal Golf Club, Canada. The International team lost 14.5 to the US team's 19.5. On 13 December 2007, Immelman withdrew from the South African Airways Open due to severe discomfort around his ribcage area and a problem breathing. He went into surgery the following Tuesday, 18 December 2007, and doctors discovered a

lesion A lesion is any damage or abnormal change in the tissue of an organism, usually caused by injury or diseases. The term ''Lesion'' is derived from the Latin meaning "injury". Lesions may occur in both plants and animals. Types There is no de ...

approximately the size of a golf ball on his diaphragm. (Immelman remarked in an interview on the obvious irony of the size of the lesion). It was diagnosed as a calcified fibrosis

tumor A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

. After more tests they discovered that it was

benign Malignancy () is the tendency of a medical condition to become progressively worse; the term is most familiar as a characterization of cancer. A ''malignant'' tumor contrasts with a non-cancerous benign tumor, ''benign'' tumor in that a malig ...

. Nevertheless, treatment and recovery caused him to miss the first eight weeks of the 2008 PGA Tour season. However, Immelman came back to win the

. Despite scoring a double bogey on the 70th hole, the par 3 16th, Immelman finished with a score of 8 under par, beating favourite

Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in List of golfers with most PGA Tour wins, PGA Tour wins, ranks second in List of men's major championships winning golfers, men's m ...

by three strokes. In June 2009, Immelman announced he would withdraw from the U.S. Open due to tendonitis in his left wrist and elbow, which plagued him for much of the 2009 and 2010 seasons. As the 2013

neared its conclusion, Immelman's winless streak extended to five years; he was forced to play in the Web.com Tour Finals after he failed to make the

FedEx Cup The FedEx Cup is the championship trophy for the PGA Tour. Its introduction in 2007 marked the first time that men's professional golf had a playoff system. Since its inception, the competition has been sponsored by FedEx. In 2022, the PGA Tour ...

playoffs and his five-year exemption for winning the Masters expired. Immelman won the Hotel Fitness Championship, the first of four Web.com Tour Finals tournaments, and finished the Finals in sixth place to regain his PGA Tour card for 2014. 2018 saw a resurgence in Immelman's career. Focusing on the European Tour, he made the cut in 8 out of 13 events, with a best finish of T3 at the Scottish Open. In the event he had a chance to qualify for The Open Championship via the Open Qualifying Series, but missed an eight-foot birdie putt on the last and lost out to Jens Dantorp by world rankings. However, with the finish, Immelman moved from 1,380th in the world to 420th, his highest ranking since 2014. Immelman finished 77th on the Race to Dubai standings, regaining full status for the

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

season. In September 2022, Immelman captained the International team in the 2022 Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 United ...

. The U.S. team won 17.5–12.5.

Broadcasting career

In 2017, 2018 and 2019, Turner Sports utilized Immelman as an analyst for coverage of the PGA Championship on TNT. In December 2019, Immelman joined the PGA Tour on CBS commentating team. After Nick Faldo retired from CBS in 2022, Immelman was named the new lead golf analyst for 2023.

OWGR Chairman

Immelman was announced as the chairman of the Official World Golf Ranking starting April 2025.

Personal life

Immelman married his childhood sweetheart, Carminita, on 6 December 2003. He has frequently participated in his mentor Gary Player's charity golf events around the world to help raise funds for children's causes. Immelman has a residence in Winter Park, Florida that he purchased in 2016 from former professional football player Jeff Faine.

Amateur wins

*1996 Junior PGA Championship *1997 South African Amateur *1998 U.S. Amateur Public Links

Professional wins (11)

PGA Tour wins (2)

PGA Tour playoff record (0–2)

European Tour wins (4)

¹Co-sanctioned by the

European Tour playoff record (1–2)

Sunshine Tour wins (5)

¹Co-sanctioned by the European Tour Sunshine Tour playoff record (1–1)

Web.com Tour wins (1)

Challenge Tour wins (1)

Other wins (1)

Major championships

Wins (1)

Results timeline

CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied

Summary

*Most consecutive cuts made – 6 (2004 U.S. Open – 2005 PGA) *Longest streak of top-10s – 2 (2007 PGA – 2008 Masters)

Results in The Players Championship

CUT = missed the half-way cut
WD = Withdrew
"T" indicates a tie for a place

Results in World Golf Championships

"T" indicates a tie for a place.
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.

Team appearances

Amateur *

Eisenhower Trophy The Eisenhower Trophy (World Men's Amateur Team Championships) is the biennial World Amateur Team Championship for men organized by the International Golf Federation. Since the tournament was first played in 1958 Eisenhower Trophy, 1958, it is nam ...

(representing South Africa):

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

Professional * World Cup (representing South Africa):

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

(winners),

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

* Presidents Cup (International Team):

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

(non-playing captain)

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Immelman, Trevor South African male golfers Sunshine Tour golfers European Tour golfers PGA Tour golfers Winners of men's major golf championships Golf commentators Korn Ferry Tour graduates Golfers from Cape Town White South African people 1979 births Living people Presidents Cup competitors for International