PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. ? Germany is a manufacturing giant and a leader in technological innovation, so it's not entirely surprising that a prototype for the 21st century golfer comes out of Dusseldorf.
By Scott Halleran, Getty Images
Martin Kaymer of Germany, the PGA Championship winner in 2010, is fit and athletic, and he has the perfect temperament for golf.
By Scott Halleran, Getty Images
Martin Kaymer of Germany, the PGA Championship winner in 2010, is fit and athletic, and he has the perfect temperament for golf.
Young. Fit. Athletic. Strong.
That describes Martin Kaymer, a 26-year-old former soccer standout who also can hold his own playing basketball or table tennis or driving a go-kart. Throw him a football and he won't embarrass himself, either. Upon choosing golf at 15, he quickly rose up the ranks in Europe, first winning on the European Development Tour, then the Challenge Tour, then on the European Tour in Abu Dhabi in 2008.
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Since then, with a simple, repetitive yet powerful swing, he has won seven more titles on the European Tour.
Last year he won the PGA Championship in a playoff against Bubba Watson, nailing clutch putts on the 72nd hole and the second playoff hole. Since the start of the 2010 season, he has five wins on the PGA and European tours. And this year he became the second-youngest player ever to sit atop the world golf rankings, trailing only Tiger Woods, who was 21 years, 5 months when he first reached No. 1.
While Kaymer concedes Germany isn't exactly a golf hotbed, he hopes to inspire his countrymen and women to greater heights in the game.
"Golf is getting bigger in Germany," says the square-jawed Kaymer, who is as engaging and polite off the golf course as he is stoic and methodical on it. "My success has changed some things in golf. There are schools that offer some golf classes now. In my gym in Dusseldorf, they opened up a golf store where you can buy golf equipment and you can hit some golf shots.
"Teenagers have come up to me and told me they watch golf and they think it's cool. Then they ask me where they can start playing golf. I get recognized in the grocery store, the gas station. Before, no one was bothering me. Now it's great because I like to talk to people.
"Maybe Sandra Gal, who won on the LPGA tour, and I can do what Boris Becker and Steffi Graf did for tennis. That would be fantastic."
Kaymer was inspired by two-time Masters champion Bernhard Langer, the only other German to be ranked No. 1. Introduced to golf when he was 10, it wasn't until his family joined a golf club that Kaymer's interest in the game took off. Falling in love with rising with the sun and hitting golf balls toward the horizon, Kaymer decided golf instead of soccer provided a better path for his life.
"I was very good in soccer, but golf was a little bit more fun and I saw a brighter future," said the rock-solid, 6-1, 167-pound Kaymer. "Golf is an individual sport, and I like that challenge. I became passionate about it. There's the beauty of the sport that I love. And golf can help you grow as a person."
This isn't to say he's given up playing any other sport. To reach his goals in golf, Kaymer knows he must remain in shape.
"I try to do every day — a run, play soccer, lift weights. Maybe an hour and a half every day," Kaymer said. "It's fun for me. I really enjoy it. Since I've been 12, I love sports. I just love to do something athletic. I play golf for a living, but I don't see why I have to stop playing the other sports."
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