Sunday
Dec082013
The Mechanic's Annuity: Claims Fourth Hong Kong Title
From an unbylined AP story on Miguel Angel Jimenez's fourth win in the Hong Kong Open, which extends his record as the oldest European Tour winner.
It was also his 20th European Tour win:
"It just gets better and better. I love Hong Kong and this course," said Jimenez, who extended his record as the oldest player to win on the European Tour to 49 years and 337 days.
"This is my fourth and it was my hardest. When you need to play a playoff, you need to play one more hole, and against two guys also trying to win is hard. But my experience paid off," said Jimenez who adds this title to ones he won in 2004, '07 and '12.
Sunday, December 8, 2013 at 08:38 PM
Reader Comments (26)
I wouldn't think it'd be the best thing for Euro-U.S. tour relations, though. "Too good to get thrown off of the PGA Tour, but not winning any more? Then come on down to the European Tour fall series!…"
Jiminez is by far the world's best in his late 40's. Class act and happy to be teeing it up with the young guns.
No Chuck, they are WORLD CLASS players. Why is that so hard to admit? You give our name a bad name. Shame on you and Pity on you.
I never said "the U.S. is better", I suggested the aggregate amount of talent on the U.S. tour is greater than in Europe. A lot of these top players aren't American, as you all know, so I don't understand that jingoism charge except as a knee-jerk reaction. It's about demographics, both national and Tour, not jingoism: The U.S. has so many more courses and players, and more of Europe's top players are coming here, leaving a "talent vacuum" in Europe.
Also, think about how many times you've heard or read about a European coming to the U.S. Tour. Sure, the purses are bigger, but these guys aren't paying lip service when they say America is where you go when you're on the top of your game - the bigger purses are in part a measurement of that fact.
The corollary to this is the fact that the list of Euro tour players who couldn't cut it on the PGA tour is much, much longer than the list of Americans who couldn't cut it in Europe (although admittedly not a lot have tried). A lot of European players with several wins come to the U.S., can't keep their status, but then go back to Europe and back to winning. Most of the courses aren't that different, so why does that happen so often?
Walk-ons like Peter Uihlein and Brooks Koepka are only a new thing in part because of the bottleneck to the PGA Tour that Finchem created starting this year. But if "the Tiger effect" has produced a lot of talented young players who now put more pressure on the older guys, these old guys can still regularly contend at an elite level - just not THE elite level of the PGA Tour, which for better or worse is now "first among equals" among the tours. They have a better chance in a field that's populated with a disproportionate number of Sternes and Dysons because it's missing so many of its Poulters, Westwoods and McIlroys.
McIlroy didn't win either until last week, but I think we both know that both guys have lots of wins left in them - on the PGA tour or wherever they play.
Chuck, pretty sure Lee has at least 130 PGA Tour starts under his belt......2 wins, a decade apart.
"Also the europeans play worldwide therefore they play on all types of grass, conditions and cultures."
Let's see, long grass, short grass, putting green grass, green grass, brown grass, living grass, dead grass. Heat, cold, windy, calm, rainy, even snow! And..."on" a culture?
The battle hardened Mechanic competes worldwide like a man half his age. Stricker is a man to be admired, fine golfer too, but at 46, has just about had enough.
Is there another modern era player who has done so much, so late?
Perry had a golden end to his '40's to be sure. But he couldn't compete now, today, for whatever reason like Jimenez is, or he would be.
At age 49 he was ranked #4 in the world.
All I'm saying is basically "hey, there are a few guys in the U.S. who're similar in age and skill to The Mechanic, I bet one of them could do an "old guy" version of what Uihlein and Koepka did this year - take a European route to the winner's circle."
It's just a fun idea to kick around.
it'll never happen though, none of them travel that much. Understandable, I guess. As other posters have said, the European tour is worldwide.
Speaking of "Euro Tour"....is a new name in order?
First two columns are week/country...numbers that follow are the week the Tour returns to that country (2013 sched):
1 South Africa 2 3 7 8 9
4 Abu Dhabi
5 Qatar
6 Dubai 38
10 India (cancelled 2014)
11 Maylasia
12 Morrocco
13 Spain (at one time had 4 events if I remember correctly)
14 South Korea
15 China
16 Bulgaria
17 Portugal 33
18 England
19 Sweden
20 Austria
21 France 24
22 Germany
23 Ireland
25 Scotland 27 32
26 Russia
28 Wales
29 Switzerland
30 Netherlands
31 Italy
34 Australia
35 China 36
37 Turkey
The Hong Kong Open awards 20 OWGR points to the winner....same as the web.com finale -- not much incentive there.
Is a new name in order for the "Euro Tour"?
First two columns are week/country...numbers that follow are the week the Tour returns to that country (2013 sched):
1 South Africa 2 3 7 8 9
4 Abu Dhabi
5 Qatar
6 Dubai 38
10 India (cancelled 2014)
11 Maylasia
12 Morrocco
13 Spain (at one time had 4 events if I remember correctly)
14 South Korea
15 China
16 Bulgaria
17 Portugal 33
18 England
19 Sweden
20 Austria
21 France 24
22 Germany
23 Ireland
25 Scotland 27 32
26 Russia
28 Wales
29 Switzerland
30 Netherlands
31 Italy
34 Australia
35 China 36
37 Turkey