He won golf’s Masters with relative ease against reigning champion Tiger Woods, but how Jewish is South African golfer Trevor Immelman?
For
Immelman comes from a whole family of golfers. The 28-year-old, with the Semitic-sounding name, was born in Cape Town, home to an active Jewish community. He has a one-year-old son with wife and childhood sweetheart Carmenita, called Jacob — a solid biblical name. If there is one sport Jews like playing, it’s golf. At the distinctly Jewish 5ft 9in, he is significantly shorter than all the top golfers on the PGA tour, and the green jacket awarded to the Masters winner would have needed some serious adjustments.
Against
Although Jews love playing golf, only nine have ever made professional careers out of it — and Trevor, sadly, isn’t one of them. The Jewish-sounding surname is actually Dutch, with Immelman’s father, Johan, originally from Holland. But it’s even less Jewish than that — an “Immelmann” happens to be the term for an stunt-plane manoeuvre named after German World War One pilot Max Immelmann.
Verdict
We would love to claim him, but we’re in the bunker.
So we say he is 3% Jewish
