Miguel Ángel Jimenez is focused on the senior golf circuit and lives from the sidelines everything related to the Saudi circuit -the LIV- and the Ryder Cup. However, someone with his experience always has a lot what to say, and he does so after a clinic sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric on Field 2 of the Real Club La Moraleja in Madrid.
Miguel Angel Jiménez, statements
“Being in the Ryder is an honor and in fact he has participated in several. Now it was his turn to be captain and he has left it. The Ryder is played for prestige and we are proud to do it because you put your name in history.
Perhaps Stenson has been pressured by saying that if he didn’t sign now they wouldn’t call him, and he may have thought that in the remainder of his career he wasn’t going to earn as much as they offered him.I know there was talk of Paul Lawrie before Stenson, but I’m not that into it anymore.
McIlroy as player-captain at the Ryder? You have to be one thing or another and Rory is a mainstay of the team “If Sergio Garcia is not in the Ryder it is because he does not get the points to qualify. Not because he is Spanish he has to play it.
If you don’t have your points or the captain doesn’t choose you because you’re not playing well, then you stay out and there’s no more. “What LIV brings to players is a lot of money. What is prestige, category and history are given to you by tournaments that already have a tradition.
When you are a young golfer, your mentality as a player is that of wanting to reach the top and not that of filling the bag. Once, according to your trajectory, you see that you are running out of rice, with thirty or forty odds, then you can think about filling the bag.
But yes, if you leave, always with respect to those who have helped you get where you are. You leave without ranting and without telling stories so you don’t sleep. We have to give thanks because many of us have arrived at golf stiffer than the mojama and we are where we are thanks to our work, but also thanks to the fact that they have given you an opportunity in the already assembled circuits.
If you are a good player you have to focus on being great, because you are going to win a lot of money. The LIV has come and the only thing that puts you is money, not something else” “I know myself well and I can only say that I always wanted to be like Ballesteros, Ben Hogan, Nicklaus, Sam Snead.
I wanted to be golf history. If something like the LIV catches me when I’m 40 years old, well, I would tell you that I was leaving, but at 20 or 22 years old you have to want to be great, because if you succeed you will earn a lot of money.
It is not about amassing money but about history. A young boy coming out of college has to look at himself in the mirror of the best historical players. Tiger, for example, had Nicklaus in his sights. That makes you get up and work with optimal motivation.
Not because you have more millions in your pocket you will live better. Possibly you will be more satisfied in your life if you have at least tried to put your name next to the great ones. Then time will put you in your place and you will be able to prepare for your old age”
