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Deserved Headache Coming – Sport

It’s been three weeks since Marcel Siem had time to look back. On the European DP World Golf Tour, the 42-year-old played his 500th tournament in Singapore – a mark that only 44 players before him had reached. Many of the players he started with in 1998 have long since left the tour, Siem said. Others, like Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts, have become close friends over the past 30 years: “This is my family here on the tour.” There are not many individual sports in which camaraderie among competitors means as much as in golf – and there are not many characters who exemplify this idea like Marcel Siem.

It was therefore not surprising that on Sunday afternoon German time more or less the entire Family sat in front of the TV and looked to India, where Siem made his comeback as a tournament winner after eight years of rock bottom. A one shot lead was enough for him to win the Hero Indian Open, his 502nd tournament. It was Siem’s ​​fifth victory on the highest European golf tour and at the same time the one that is likely to have the most lasting effect. It’s “life-changing,” Siem said before his fourth round.

When he last won in 2014, at the BMW Masters in England, Siem confirmed that he was the second best German golfer behind Martin Kaymer. The two of them shared a common origin from the town of Mettmann. While Kaymer made it to first place in the world rankings, Siem made a name for himself in Europe as an emotional character – and as a winner who always took his chances.

Alone: ​​He hardly got any as a result. As with Kaymer, Siem was also relegated from the elite class, but he fell significantly further behind than his compatriot. So much so that he was almost forgotten. In August 2020, Siem was world number 1023, lost his right to start on the DP World Tour and played in the second division again, as he did as an amateur in the 1990s. There is hardly any money to be made on the so-called Challenge Tour, and even loyal sponsors quickly lose interest there. In the lowlands of golf, it’s all about somehow forcing advancement.

In 2021 his wife fell ill with cancer. Siem took his little daughter to the tournament – and won

But not only the sporting descent occupied Siem: At the beginning of 2021 his wife Laura fell ill with cancer; in the meantime she has conquered the tumour. He cried a lot during this time, Siem said later about the illness – which he kept secret from the public for a year because he didn’t want everyone to talk to him about it when he was trying to save his career at the same time. Athlete, husband and father: Siem tried to do this balancing act, he took his little daughter Victoria to a tournament in France – and managed to turn things around. The La Vaudreuil Golf Challenge 2021 will go down in sports history as an insignificant golf tournament. Today Siem describes it as the most important victory of his career: “It was the most emotional victory, with my daughter with me. It enabled me to appear on the big stage again .”

Marcel Siem was back, playing great at the Open Championship a few weeks later, regaining his DP World Tour eligibility at the end of the year and managing to keep it last year despite injury. Smaller tournaments like the one in India, where the big stars don’t travel, were now the best opportunities to take the next step down the road – and if Siem has proven anything in his 25-year professional career, it’s that he can seize opportunities . “I have very good statistics when it comes to actually winning,” said Siem, who won in Delhi in a duel with another German: Yannik Paul, 28, was four years old when Siem made his debut as a professional golfer Today Paul owns the German future in golf, even if he only finished second in India. In the current September Ryder Cup qualifying rankings, only two players are ahead of Paul: Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy, world No. 1 and No. 3 respectively.

Two Germans in the final: Marcel Siem (left) and Yannik Paul at the Hero Indian Open in New Delhi.

(Photo: Sajjad Hussain/AFP)

The Ryder Cup, the top world rankings, all of that is very far away for Siem. As a winner, he is now eligible to play in all European tournaments, can play in major tournaments and no longer has to worry about being empty-handed again in November. “Now it’s off to my family in Mauritius first, then we’ll plan again,” said Siem, who now lives in Africa because he doesn’t have to train in the cold there – it’s important in old age, he said recently in a podcast, half joking, half serious.

When he left India, Siem not only had a trophy with him, but also recognition from his golf family. Numerous professionals reported on social networks, the Ryder Cup captain from 2018, Thomas Björn, wrote that it was a deserved victory for a “top person” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/.” So happy for you and your family,” wrote Brit Ross Fisher, also a veteran of the tour. And the Belgian Colsaerts proved that he actually knows Siem, the big red wine fan, very well after all these years, he ventured a prognosis: “A well-deserved headache is coming.”

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