GEORGE, SOUTH AFRICA | When he
walked onto the range at Fancourt, heads
turned. This was the first time Jose Maria
Olazabal was out and about in the year
he will captain the Europeans in what he
hopes will be a famous away win in the
Ryder Cup.
Olazabal knows that people are “
captain aware.” He was that way himself, not
just in 1987 when he was trying to make
the team for a first time, but every time.
“Playing in the Ryder Cup always
meant everything to me and it is the same
for all of them,” said Olazabal, nodding
toward his fellow Europeans. “They love
the match, the whole business of playing
against the Americans – the four-balls,
the foursomes, the camaraderie.
“When they look at me, they will see
me as a ‘reminder.’ I will be in the back of
their minds.”
Simon Dyson, lying ninth on the Ryder
Cup points table at the start of last week,
was one to have noted Olazabal’s arrival.
“You want to impress the captain, of
course you do,” said Dyson. “I’d love to
be part of his team and listening to his
speeches.”
For Dyson, this early sighting had him
reiterating his strategy for the season. He
does not intend to talk about how close
he is to playing at Medinah. When anyone
asks, he will switch the conversation to
how he is taking aim on winning a couple
of tournaments in the first half of the year.
“I’ve seen too many other players put
too much pressure on themselves in my
situation,” he explains.
that there is today. Thomas (Björn), Lee
(Westwood), Padraig Harrington and Dar-ren (Clarke) are going in for physical training in a big way and staying competitive.
“(Miguel Angel) Jimenez is another,”
he added. “He’s very flexible. You notice it
in his warm-up routine and you notice it
in the gym. He’s got a belly on him but he
works much harder than he lets on.”
To Olazabal, the change in the younger
generation is similarly marked. “Take
Matteo (Manassero),” he suggests. “In
many ways, he is very like I was as a teen-
ager. He is not the longest but makes up
for that by being very accurate. Where he
is different from ‘the young me’ is in the
way he thinks his way round a course. He
learned in the amateur game, as they all
do now.”
It goes without saying that Tom Lewis
is another in that category. Like Manas-
sero, the 21-year-old Lewis
will need to perform well
across the summer but Olazabal would
have taken mental note of how he com-
piled his opening 68 at Fancourt. After
running up a seven at the 16th, he signed
off with a couple of birdies.
