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Golfer, Martin
Kaymer looks to have the same drive, determination and mental strength
as former tennis champions, Steffi Graf, Boris Becker and seven-time
Formula One champion Michael Schumacher.

But unlike his
fellow German athletes, Kaymer’s own rise to the top of his sport,
before he took over as world number one from Britain Lee Westwood
Monday, has largely gone unnoticed in his home country.

Whereas Becker,
Graf and Schumacher captivated Germans with their exploits on the
courts and the racing tracks, boosting their sports’ popularity to new
heights, Kaymer has quietly shot up the rankings, enjoying only
occasional coverage.

Where the others
had TV spots, front pages and fly-on-the-wall coverage of their events,
Kaymer is much more low-profile, never making it on the best-selling
Bild newspaper’s front page.

Kaymer has not been
back to Germany for any length of time since clinching his first major
title at last year’s PGA Championship but he hopes to raise his sport’s
profile there even more now that he has become world number one.

“In Germany, it’s
very difficult to get (fan) respect and recognition because we have
only soccer and Formula One which are pretty big,” the 26-year-old said
at this week’s WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Marana, Arizona.

“And as a golf
player, you barely get recognised at all. I’m trying to do what Steffi
Graf and Boris Becker did in tennis. If we can do the same with golf in
Germany, that would be very nice.” The U.S. PGA champion’s
head-spinning climb to the top of the rankings has made him one of the
hottest properties in golf and he has now emulated his role model and
compatriot Bernhard Langer, who was 29 when he became the first
official world number one in 1986.

Only recently,
however, a German consultancy was hired to help boost Kaymer’s profile
domestically with a series of media events prior to last year’s Ryder
Cup as his image within the country was lagging behind his
international success.

“There has been a
need to push his image in Germany a bit. He does not seem to have the
coverage he deserves,” a media expert who has been involved in the
golfer’s effort to boost his image, told Reuters on condition of
anonymity.

Switched focus

The soft-spoken
Kaymer almost chose football as a profession before switching his focus
to golf as a 16-year-old. Last year, he won four European Tour titles
before ending 2010 as the circuit’s number one player.

“All the goals I
set for myself happened — to win the Race to Dubai, to play in and win
the Ryder Cup and to win a major (PGA Championship),” Kaymer recalled.

Since clinching
that first major title at Whistling Straits in August, Kaymer has
triumphed three times on the European Tour, most recently at the Abu
Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship in January.