by Jeff Skinner
Miguel Angel Jimenez just keeps doing it. He keeps getting better. He keeps winning tournaments. He keeps getting older. And if possible he keeps getting cooler.
The reigning “senior” member of the European Tour held off relative youngsters Thomas Pieters of Belgium and Australia’s Richard Green in a one hole playoff to win the Open de Espana. It’s Miguel’s first win in this event in twenty seven attempts.
The fifty year old broke his own record as the oldest winner in European Tour history which he set earlier this year when he won the Hong Kong Open. The previous oldest player to win this tournament was another cool golfer; Arnold Palmer was forty-five when he won in 1975.
Jimenez squandered a two stroke lead but managed to scramble back into the lead when Green stumbled with a triple bogey on fourteen. A bogey on seventeen dropped him into a three way tie before he claimed the playoff victory.
Jimenez wanted dearly to finally collect his national open and was thrilled to finally earn his first Spanish Open championship.
“There’s no words to describe what it means to me, you need to be into my skin but I’m not going to let you!” Jimenez said. “It’s amazing. It’s my 21st victory on The European Tour and 27 times I played the Spanish Open. I have been close a couple of times. Today it was very tough out there but I got it in the end.
“All the victories are special, all are unique, some of them give you more money, some less, but all of them are important. You play to win and when you make it you have to appreciate it.
“I don’t know if I felt nerves, but you do feel tension, you feel the pressure. For instance on hole 17, when I saw the approach roll down the slope, those things cut my mind and take away the freedom from my hands. I don’t know if that counts as nerves, but as tension, yes.”
He was asked the secret to his longevity on tour and came clean,”There is no secret. Good food, good wine, good cigars and some exercise!”
Jimenez has been quite adamant about his goal in 2014: make the Ryder Cup team. This win will move him closer to an automatic bid and another record as the oldest player in Ryder Cup history.
“I would love to make The Ryder Cup team, I would break all the records at 50,” added Jimenez. “I hope I can make the team and defend the European colors in Scotland.”
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