miguel jimenez

Every weekend hacker, scratch golfer and tour pro strives for a piece of what Miguel Angel

Jiménez has got. From the top of his Ping cap to the shiny tips of his Nebuloni shoes, this man exudes complete and utter satisfaction with his lot in life. More often than not, you’ll find him at one end of the practice range, hitting little wedge shots, bantering with those around him beneath a fug of cigar smoke. On the eve of the Smurfit Kappa European Open at The K Club, all around him is a hive of activity. Along the line, Padraig Harrington pounds balls under the watchful eye of his coach Bob Torrance.

GP tuition expert Jonathan Yarwood fiddles attentively with with Michael Campbell’s hip rotation, while a few yards away on the practice green Retief Goosen goes through his drills on the putting green, patiently waiting for the magic to return. An atmosphere of strained jocularity is all-pervading, as players chat with their caddies, managers and, occasionally, with each other. It looks like the parents’ race at sports day, everyone pretending not to care while secretly scheming on ways to leave the rest of the field floundering. Or they could just all be best mates...

Earlier this year, Darren Clarke talked to GolfPunk about the peculiar pecking order of the practice range. There are the major winners, the guys who’ve got WGC and PGA Tour titles and then the young pretenders trying to muscle in on the action. Miguel Angel Jiménez cuts across all this palaver, not by being larger-than-life but by just being, well... himself. He engages very easily with his fellow tour pros - innumerable players we’ve met over the past two years have gone out of their way to tell us what a great guy he is. And periodically, he’s looked like an invincible on his home patch. He’s got 14 European Tour titles to his name (more than Vijay Singh and Bernard Gallacher and just one behind Greg Norman) in a fascinating career of three peaks - 1994, ‘98/’99 and then again in 2004, when he nailed wins at the Johnnie Walker Classic, The Algarve Open, the BMW Asian Open and the WGC’s NEC Invitational. He’s also got style and class to spare.

Requesting an espresso machine to be installed at Oakland Hills prior to the 2004 Ryder Cup? Walter Hagen would have been proud.

» Miguel_Jimenez Part 2