The rain in Spain does not fall mainly on Miguel Angel Jimenez. Neither, apparently, does the deluge in Duluth.
Eagles line their nests with hair from his ponytail.
His signed scorecard is considered a rare first edition.
He always has the honors, even when he doesn’t.
Cubans smoke his cigars.
He has many chances to make a first impression — but he doesn’t need them.
Everything they were saying about Jimenez coming into the Greater Gwinnett Championship — talking about him like he was that Dos Equis most interesting man in the world — must be so. If anything, they were trafficking in understatement.
In his first-ever round on the Champions Tour, in weather that made the British Open look like a Sandals Resort scramble, all Jimenez did was fire a 7-under 65 and take a quick three-stroke lead.
“I guess it shows what clean living does for you,” Steve Pate joked about the new kid in the restricted over-50 neighborhood. Jimenez is known for his appreciation for the leaf and the grape and whatever the Spanish version is of joie de vivre.
How does a man from sunny Spain perform so flawlessly in the cold and wet, you ask? “Sometimes it’s cold and rainy in Germany, sometimes you have to play, no?” Jimenez said. Duluth, Dusseldorf, what’s the difference? “You never know what’s going to happen, no? My thing is when you’re there, you do your best to play, concentrate. It’s going to be a long day and just keep going.”
They play only three rounds in this event. That leaves just a weekend now for the Gwinnett field to chip away at the Jimenez mystique.
Here are the leading pursuers, many of them the usual suspects: Pate, Bernhard Langer, Kenny Perry at 4 under; Fred Couples and Jeff Sluman a shot back of them.
Men this age should have sense enough not to play in weather like Friday’s. They should be warm and dry, with their clubs in the trunk and a Sunday tee time at the club in the books. But they are professional golfers, and there are commitments to keep. Sometimes that means playing all day long in a steadily building rain and a chill much more suited to aging meat than breaking par.
“Put your waterproofs on, bring an extra sweater and off you go,” Langer said.
If Jimenez noticed the elements, he didn’t betray it. The guy’s more waterproof than Gore-Tex.
He went straight from the practice tee and his YouTube-famous warm-up routine to the first tee of the rest of his Champions Tour life and immediately spit out a birdie. The putt on the par-5 10th was three feet. Easy.
Beginning on TPC Sugarloaf’s back nine, Jimenez was 6 under through his first nine holes. That included an eagle on the par-5 18th, constructed of a driver, a 7-wood to the middle of the green and a putter true from 30 feet.
Having just performed so ably at the Masters — 4 under, fourth-place ably to be precise — Jimenez merely continued his roll. His competitors had other hopes.
“I figured he would have more of letdown as he came over here, you know,” Perry said.
So, Miguel, how do you like your first whack at golf’s golden parachute tour?
“Well, what do you want me to say? I just shot 7 under and am leading the tournament. I love it. Is nice,” he said.
All three of the top over-50 golfers at last week’s Masters loom as factors here. “Going to be tough to beat Jimenez, Couples and Langer,” Atlanta’s Billy Andrade (even par) said. “They come here, they’re all lubed up. My hope was that maybe they’d be tired from playing last week — obviously not with the scores they’re shooting.”
For such a messy day, there were a surprising number of clean scorecards. Jimenez was bogey free. The top four players on the leaderboard together accounted for only two bogeys. There were 18 rounds under par in the field of 124.
Despite weather that should have left his chronically bad back a wreck, Couples was coasting along at 5 under until taking a double bogey on his final hole of the day, the par-4 9th. He’ll have to shake off that, along with the damp cold.
Langer, who put together his 17th consecutive below-par round on the Champions Tour, issued the warning earlier this week that Jimenez would “leave his mark” here. Jimenez certainly left his share of ball marks near the hole Friday, hitting 15 of 18 greens in regulation.
And when his first workday on this new job was in the books, Jimenez had three priorities to tend to before returning for a hopefully drier, warmer Round 2.
“It’s time for a nice warm shower, a nice fat cigar and a glass of Rioja,” he declared.
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