AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He was the typical little brother.

You know, a pain in the butt. Asked a lot of questions, occasionally got in the way and tugged on a lot of shirttails.

'I'm living proof that if you work hard and believe in yourself, you can make it happen,' Trevor Immelman says. (Getty Images)

Growing up in South Africa, newly minted Masters champion Trevor Immelman always wanted to be a professional golfer, starting at age 5, when he began becoming a minor nuisance to big brother, Mark.

Mark, who is nine years older, was playing amateur golf against a couple of guys named Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. No matter, pesky little Trevor, now 28, would not be dissuaded. "He always wanted to hang around with us," Mark Immelman said, laughing. "He was always trying to keep up with the big boys. Lo and behold, he kept up with the big boys."

As far as the Masters goes back home, few are bigger.

Becoming the second South African to win the Masters, and the first since Gary Player in 1978, Immelman succeeded where guys like Goosen and Els had failed, hanging on with a blustery 75 on Sunday night to beat Tiger Woods by three shots in wire-to-wire fashion.

For years, he and brother Mark used to camp in front of the TV with their pillows in West Somerset, watching the action at Augusta National despite their red eyes and a seven-hour time-zone difference.

"Dream big dreams," Immelman said.

They started early. One of the prized possessions of the Immelman clan is a photo of Player as he held Trevor, age 5, aloft. Immelman is grinning from ear to ear, minus a few front teeth.

The grin on Sunday was just as broad, though the tooth count has increased -- sort of like the bite the course was putting in the players' backsides in the final round. His closing total matched the highest final-round score for a winner, last posted by Arnold Palmer in 1962.

"With conditions today, there was disaster around every corner," Immelman said. Amen Corner, especially. The crucial stretch of the tournament came on Nos. 11-13, the fabled stretch where the dreams of boys of every age often go to drown. Immelman was leading by two shots when he missed the green and failed to get his chip shot on the putting surface.

Over the next 120 seconds, the tournament essentially became his to lose. Two groups ahead, Woods missed a four-foot birdie putt on the 13th. On No. 12, Steve Flesch, who was two shots behind, splashed his tee shot into Rae's Creek.

When Immelman ran home his par-saver from 15 feet, he led Flesch by four shots and Woods by five. Despite a few tumbles, neither of the latter could muster a serious threat and Immelman sauntered in relatively unmolested.

In other words, the kid who spent part of his last trip to Augusta in a hospital emergency room, puking his guts up from a stomach virus, kept his lunch down when it mattered most. Trevor Immodium gave his foes an upset stomach.

Immelman put on the type of exhibition that some have been expecting for years. He led the field in greens in fairways found, was second in greens in regulation and used the fourth-fewest putts. Immelman, the 2006 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, might have climbed this major-championship mountain sooner if not for the aforementioned stomach issue and a frightening surgical episode in December.

The stomach bug derailed him for a couple of months, and after he rebuilt his game and won a South African event in December, he was felled a few days later by a benign tumor that was found in his diaphragm.

Four months later, the guy won the Masters, which is more far-fetched than anything a 5-year-old could dream up.

"This has been the ultimate roller coaster ride," Immelman said. "And I hate roller coasters."

We feel compelled to point out that the guy lives in Orlando, home to Disney World and a few other theme parks with white-knuckle amusements. You needed a mental seatbelt to get your head around this story.

"It's the craziest thing I have ever heard of," he said.

The most insane portion might be his performance with the putter. Immelman has been bleeding on the greens for months, trying all sorts of remedies and putters. Brother Mark gave him a tip on Monday and told him to be less fixated on the hole and more tuned to the stroke itself.

"Take the emphasis away from the hole," Mark explained.

So, that's the panacea, huh? Immelman entered the week ranked No. 202 out of 204 players listed in the PGA Tour computer in putts per greens in regulation. In average putts per round, he was 196th. Any descriptive adjectives would sound cruel. Everybody knows that the putter is the most crucial instrument on the club's famously tricky greens.

"What that indicates is the value of a stat," said Stewart Cink, who finished tied for third, "not the quality of a player."

He held up under relentless pressure. The last player to hold at least a share of the lead for all four rounds was Seve Ballesteros in 1980. Like Immelman, Ballesteros was tied for the lead after the first round.

Trevor had been born four months earlier and hit the ground running. "Boet" means brother in Afrikaans, and the younger Immelman was soon making Mark, a college All-American at Division II power Columbus State, feel like a stiff. Trevor was beating him by age 13, prompting an overhaul of Mark's occupational trajectory.

"That's how I got into golf instruction," he said, laughing.

Nonetheless, the Immelmans are practically royalty back home. Mark is now head coach at his alma mater, which is located 250 miles down the highway. Johan Immelman, their father, was once commissioner of the Sunshine Tour, the major tour in South Africa.

Like Trevor dreamed the unthinkable, there's more on the way. Immelan's son, Jake, isn't yet 2 years old and Trevor recently found him in the garage, trying to start the family's electric golf cart and head to the course. Jake uses golf clubs to pull things off tables and shelves, so he's already pretty good with a stick in hand.

Just like his not-so-old man, who is now the lone player in his 20s to own a Grand Slam title.

"I'm living proof that if you work hard and believe in yourself, you can make it happen," he said.