Despite the tremendous effort he is making to return to competition in the best conditions (he reappears at the Open de España on the 18th of this month), Miguel Ángel Jiménez recognizes that he will still have to work hard to recover his muscles and be at one hundred percent of his possibilities on the course. “I have a good feeling, the balls are coming out fairly straight, although I have lost ten percent in distance with the woods, with the irons I’m still the same, and in the short strokes I’m as usual,” he says. “The problem,” he adds, “is that I still don’t feel one hundred percent stability in my right leg, I still need to muscle the quadriceps a little more and solidify the knee with the muscles a little more.”
This mandatory break from competition since Christmas due to his skiing accident has not affected him mentally, the charismatic golfer from Malaga assures: “Psychologically I am perfect, I always try to see the bottle half full, not half empty. Every cloud has a silver lining and, for example, thanks to this injury many things that I didn’t have time for before have been unblocked and are now working, such as the school (the one that bears his name, in Torremolinos)”.
“On the other hand,” he continues, “it doesn’t hurt to take a break after 24 years of going around the world. What happens is that a break at 30 is not the same as when you are 49, because you see that there is less time ahead of you and that it’s not the right time to rest. What I find most difficult is to recover my physical tone, because it’s more work and, although I do it, the gym gives me hives.
Despite the bad experience, he says he is eager to put on his skis again and does not rule out returning to Sierra Nevada very soon. “I know there’s snow until May, so maybe I’ll go cross-country skiing,” he says.
His enforced inactivity has caused him to lose positions in the world ranking (he has fallen from 53rd to 83rd in these months). “Now we have to start competing and playing well to make a comeback,” he says, and says he has not set any goals for the end of the season regarding his world ranking. “My goal from May, when I hope to be at 100 percent, is to go out and win, which is the best motivation.”
Regarding the Majors, he will set his goals for two of the four: “For the US Open I will not play a two-round pre-qualifier; for the British Open I am exempt; for the Masters, which is next week, we already know it can’t be, and then I will try to be in the top 100 (in the world ranking) to be able to play the US PGA”.
RFGA ELECTIONS
On another subject, Jiménez talks about the electoral process for the election of the new president of the Royal Andalusian Golf Federation (RFGA), whose elections were held in July last year and which, due to challenges, have not yet been resolved, so that a management board is the one that runs the entity for the time being. “We are in a democratic country,” he says, “and if they hold elections and the winner has come out, I don’t know why they have to be challenged. Have they been erased or did someone put ballots in the back? I do not know, I imagine that things should be challenged when there are things that are wrongly done, but when there is a unanimous agreement to open some envelopes or to open some ballot boxes and all those present are present, both those of one side and those of the other side, the elections must be accepted. You cannot start contesting something because it has not turned out in your favor. I don’t want to say something that might upset you, but for me that’s not the right thing to do”.
Jiménez has shown his support for one of the candidates, Ángel de la Riva, the last president of the RFGA. “He has my support and my vote,” he says; “I have known him for a long time, obviously there have been things between the professionals and the Federation in which it never rains to everyone’s liking, but he has my support because I consider him to be the best candidate for these elections. I see no alternative in the other group and I prefer Ángel’s team. I want the best for golf and I believe that Ángel and his team is the best for golf”.
The player from Malaga is convinced that many things can be done to help improve the situation of golf in Andalusia: “I have some ideas that I think can be great for golf, both professional and amateur, and can be carried out both with one or the other (referring to who finally wins the elections)”.
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