Genius and figure He started the season very well, with second places in the Open de España in El Prat and in the BMW International in Wentworth, he also won the first tournament of the season in the North American Senior Circuit, in Hawaii. However, shortly before the summer the streak was cut short.
With twenty-one victories on the European Tour, the last one at the Spanish Open in May 2014, when he beat his own record as the oldest winner on the Tour, the player from Malaga is the second active Spanish player with the highest number of victories on the Old Continent’s circuit. Only Chema Olazábal beats him by two, while Sergio García has eleven victories on the European Tour.
A few minutes ago, coming from Austria, his wife’s country, his flight landed at the nearby airport of Malaga and, upon arriving at his Golf School in Torremolinos, for a promotional event of the golf offer in the province of Seville, he is as always: vital and cheerful.
-How would you evaluate your season, what were your aspirations at the beginning of the year?
-The truth is that I aspired to much more, especially after having had very good results in the first part of the year, until the end of May. But after the US Open, in June, I gave myself an egg, so to speak, because the club has not been at the height of the circumstances, maybe I’ve been a little stressed and that has been affecting my whole game. And in the last two months I have not been up to the task.
-Stressed because the expected results were not forthcoming?
-Possibly thinking about the results. You start analyzing and in the end that’s what it is.
-What goals have you set for next season?
-Next year I will start defending the tournament I won in Hawaii and then I don’t know. I have possibilities to play in the Olympics, I have possibilities to play in Europe and I have possibilities to play in the Senior of America. I have to study it to see what interests you the most.
-Now that you are about to turn 52, do you see yourself in the short term more focused on the Senior or European Tour?
-Gradually you go more and more towards the Senior, obviously, but, come on, I’m still competing on the European Tour because I still see myself competitive and with a chance of winning. The day I see that I can no longer win, I’ll hang up my clubs.
-And what would you do then?
-I don’t know. When we get to that bridge, we’ll cross it. In the meantime, we have to live day by day. Anyway, I can’t stop: I’m a restless ass.
-Would you like to participate in the Olympic Games?
-Can you imagine Pisha with a piece of Habano in the middle of the Olympic Village?
-I imagine that smoking will be prohibited there.
-Then my cousin will play.
-Do you see the inclusion of golf as an Olympic sport as positive?
-Yes, because it gives it more visibility and also every Olympic sport has more support from the institutions so that it continues to become more popular. I see more things in favor than against.
-How is your Torremolinos Golf School doing?
-It’s getting better. We have been open for two and a half years and the numbers are gradually approaching what we want. It has cost me a lot to do it, it has cost me and it is still costing me a lot to maintain it, but, come on, we continue with enthusiasm and desire.
-Those adventures as a major tournament organizer have gone down in history, I suppose?
-Yes, because in the end it cost me a lot of money. Of course, not a euro more comes out of my pocket. I lost a lot, especially last year, when one of the sponsors dropped me ten days before the tournament; but the tournament was held, because when I give my word, I keep it.
-How do you assess the fact that not a single tournament of the European Tour is held in Andalusia when this community used to be the most active in that sense?
-There is no money, the institutions are not in favor and neither are the private companies, so there is little to do.
-With the decrease in the number of tournaments for professionals in our country, which are becoming increasingly scarce, and their limited economic endowment, the future of Spanish professionals does not look very promising….
-We have good players, but we also have a problem: there is no national circuit as we had in Spain a few years ago.
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