Els Opens Up About Autistic Son

I’ve always liked to watch Ernie Els set up over a driver, those powerful legs in perfect athletic position. He’s bigger than he appears on television. If he lowered into a four-point, football stance, he looks fully capable of flattening you – a rangy tight end reeling in a 12-yard pass to keep the chains moving.
 
Plenty of times when I struggle to get my own 6’4” frame settled comfortably over a golf shot, I picture Ernie, even if I hit it like Elmo.
 
In any event, Ernie launched a Kennedy Space Center special from Innisbrook’s slightly elevated 10th tee, and the assembled admirers gasped in amazement during Wednesday’s pro-am.
 
I ambled down the hill with Els, knowing I’d have some 340 yards to fill my reporter’s notebook with some pearls from the resurgent big man.
 
He jarred me with numbers for which I simply was not prepared after I inquired about the new logo on his golf bag.
 
“Something like 1 in 150 (kids) are now diagnosed with autism,” he said. “It’s four times more likely to hit boys than girls.”
 
Suddenly, the 41-month winless drought and the Norman-like collapses meant nothing, just a few more lines from that movie now playing at a theater near you called ‘The Tiger That Ate a Sport.’
 
“Ben is 5 years old,” Ernie said. “He’s a good kid.”
 
And with that Ernie had struck perhaps the most important shot of his life. His son is autistic, and he and his wife, Leizl, have decided to go public.
 
“We want to help raise awareness and try to find a cure,” he added.
 
There is no cure. And Autism is approaching epidemic proportions, more common now than pediatric cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined.
 
So stitched on Ernie’s golf bag is Autism Speaks. It’s a 3-year-old organization co-founded by former NBC/Universal chief Bob Wright and his wife, Suzanne.
 
“Leizl and I are fortunate that we have the means to get Ben the help he needs,” Ernie explained. “But plenty of people don’t, so we want to do our part because it takes special teachers and a lot of attention.”
 
You likely know someone who has an autistic child. I do. And I’m told it’s an intensely trying experience. You want the best for your children, sure, but we’d all settle for the basics – that they find their place in the world socially, that they fit in without trouble.
 
That’s just not easy for the autistic, with their rigid routines and repetitive behaviors, the difficulty in communicating and relating to others, the obsession with arranging objects or following specific routines.
 
“We have to find out what’s causing this because it’s really spreading,” Ernie said. Speculation currently swirls around infant vaccines or myriad environmental possibilities. No one knows for sure.
 
But Ernie Els has joined the fight.
 
He turned his focus to the wedge shot before him. He hit it with purpose and precision.
 
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