Miguel Angel Jimenez accomplished much during his post-Masters stopover in Duluth. He won the Greater Gwinnett Championship in a wire-to-wire romp. He picked these guys’ slacks pockets for $270,000. He became only the second Spaniard to claim a title — that of El Campeon — on the second-chance Champions Tour.
But the grandest achievement was this: He made turning 50 look easy.
The golf certainly seemed easy. Sunday he shot 67 — about 20 over his apparent pulse rate but five under par — to go 14 under for three days at TPC Sugarloaf. It was his second of two bogey-free rounds for the extended weekend.
The brio flowed like Spanish red. With a three-shot lead as he strolled down the 18th fairway Sunday, he blew kisses to the Golf Channel camera. He gave the thumbs up to a gallery that would have voted at the moment to forgive all of Spain’s debt.
Yes, he was for that moment, the most interesting golfer in the world. Par measures itself against him.
Then there is the whole Don Quixote-type quest Jimenez has going now to become the oldest player ever to make the European Ryder Cup team. It is for that reason he will forsake the easy riches to be had on the over-50 Tour here and go back to work against those half his age on the European Tour. He was just passing through Gwinnett County on his way to tilt at windmills.
“To me, is not about money,” he said, “it’s about some different goals to make me feel proud of myself. To me it would be nice if I can play in the Ryder Cup once more.”
His schedule the next few weeks is loaded with adventure. Get married. Go play at the Spanish Open. Teach these youngsters that it doesn’t take a flat belly or smooth skin or a cookie-cutter look to make a golf ball dance to your own tune. He is not scheduled to play back in the States again until June’s U.S. Open.
And for now, Jimenez has opted totally out of the mid-life crisis plan.
“I’m very happy with my age and the way I’m doing,” he said. “The last 15 years (I feel) my best golf coming, and I’m still playing my best golf. Is nice. Not complaining with 50, no.”
When Easter Sunday at the course began, there existed a possible storyline that contained the element of sweaty competition. Only two strokes separated the members of the final threesome.
They were golf’s jazz trio, playing the old standards. On the keyboards, Jimenez, just smokin’. On bass, Bernhard Langer, cool as the evening’s first gimlet. On percussion, Fred Couples — call him Boom Boom.
Hit it, fellas.
But, it quickly turned out that no one could keep up with Jimenez’s tempo.
Right away, Couples fell out of rhythm. He was in a curious state as he tumbled from contention early. His difficult approach shot to the par-4 third — in the rough on a severe downhill lie — barely cleared the creek in front of the green, plugging into the far bank of the hazard. He did well to bogey from there.
On the par-5 fifth, his tee shot found a fairway bunker. He pulled out a hybrid, a hubris-filled club, it turned out. Couples couldn’t pull off the daring rescue, the shot catching the bunker’s lip and falling back into the sand. Another bogey, on a hole the long-hitting Couples could well have feasted upon. He was done.
For Langer, the big swing came on the 220-yard par-3 eighth. Tied for the lead with Jimenez as he stood on that tee box, Langer pulled his 4-iron short and right of the green. He then chunked his chip into the bunker, and had to get up-and-down for bogey.
Meanwhile, Jimenez hit his 4-iron to four feet. His birdie putt completed a two-shot swing and gave him the lead to stay.
This was no country for old men who couldn’t go low. Jimenez had five birdies over an eight-hole segment in the middle of his round to distance himself from the field. He was making it all look too easy.
“When you hit the ball straight and you put it close to the flag, it appears easy. But nothing is easy. Never is easy to win,” he said.
Langer, who finished two back of Jimenez with a birdie on the 18th, shot three consecutive 68s, and that still wasn’t enough to run down Jimenez. At least he won’t have to run into him again anytime soon on the Champions Tour.
Count Langer among the believers in Jimenez, whose fourth-place finish at the Masters was even more impressive than his win here. With what he has accomplished thus far, why couldn’t he make Team Europe at summer’s end?
“I think he’s got a very good chance (at the Ryder Cup),” Langer said. “I mean, he plays as good of golf as anybody, really. He might be 10, 20 yards shorter than the longest guys out there, but he makes up for it with his consistency. I don’t see really a weakness in him.”
Just let the scorecard do the talking, not the calendar.
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