After two years of drought, the rain of victories returns for Miguel Angel Jimenez
He has done it again. Miguel Angel Jimenez has managed to triumph again in his successful career by winning, after two years of victory drought, in the PGA Tour Champions and doing it twice. First at the Hassan II Golf Trophy, in Rabat, and then at the Hoag Classic, in California. 
The words of Miguel Ángel Jiménez, guided by his excellent start to the season
“It’s a fantastic feeling to win after more than two years… and I’m not going to stop,” said the exultant champion after his victory at the Royal Golf Dar es Salam. And his words were prophetic, as shortly after he would win at the Newport Beach Country Club in California.
The charismatic player from Malaga added in Morocco his fourteenth victory in the senior circuit of the PGA Tour, for over 50 years old. Thanks to the 400,000 dollars that the victory was endowed with, Jimenez surpassed the 15 million dollars of earnings in the aforementioned circuit, in which he enrolled in 2014. In the Champions he has won half the money he has won in the rest of the circuits in which he has participated, in which he has pocketed a little more than 28 million dollars.
Miguel Angel Jimenez’s comeback season
At 61 years of age, the Andalusian player, a professional since 1982 and with 21 international victories (apart from 15 on the PGA Tour Champions) to his credit, has made an excellent start to the current season.
In his first event, in mid-January at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, he finished second, just two strokes behind South African Ernie Els, in his second tournament of the year, in February, Jiménez won in Morocco with a two-stroke lead over New Zealander Steven Alker, and in the fourth, in March in California, he won again, this time against American Stewart, Cink and Swede Freddie Jacobson by one stroke difference.
The transcendence of Miguel Ángel Jiménez
His early career as a golfer
Miguel Angel, the fifth of seven siblings, had his first contact with golf at the age of 15, picking up balls and caddying at the Torrequebrada golf course, not far from his home. At that age he had already left school and was earning a living working in a garage. In 1979 he enjoyed watching Seve, Sandy Lyle and Sam Torrance in action at the Spanish Open at Torrequebrada. Three years later , in 1982, Jiménez made a fundamental decision that would completely change his life: he became a professional golfer.
The big step towards internationals
After a few years traveling around Spain competing in national competitions, Miguel Angel set his sights on the European Tour and secured his playing rights in 1988 after passing through the Qualifying School.
His first international victory came in 1988, at the age of 24, in the French Open de Linforatique,
and his winning debut on the European Tour would take place in 1992 at the Piaget Belgian Open. In this circuit he would win another twenty times, being the last one in the 2014 Spanish Open, year in which Jiménez would begin his journey in the PGA Tour Champions. In this circuit for the over-50s he would demonstrate his talent in his first season, winning the Greater Gwinnett Championship.
The winning nature of Miguel Angel Jimenez
From then until 2020, the Malaga native would win in every season, one tournament per year between 2014 and 2017, two tournaments per season between 2018 and 2020. In 2018 he achieved two of his most emotional victories, both in two majors: the Regions Tradition, at Greystone G&CC, Alabama and The Senior Open at the Old Course of St Andrews, Jiménez, with that American triumph, became the first Spaniard to win a PGA Tour Champions major.
The success of Miguel Angel Jimenez, linked to his perseverance
In 2021 he finished second five times, once after losing a playoff to Lee Janzen, and in 2022 he returned to the winning track, with no less than three victories. In 2023 he finished second three times, and in 2024 he scored ten top 10s, with a third place finish as his best result. Jimenez holds the record for the longest winner on the European Tour when he won the 2014 Spanish Open at the age of 50 years and 133 days. He is also the player with the most tournaments played on the European Tour. He has played 723 and surpassed Sam Torrance’s previous record of 706 tournaments in 2020.
Miguel Angel Jimenez’s personal record celebration
Jimenez then celebrated his record in style, demonstrating on the first day of the Hero Open at the Forest of Arden Marriott Hotel & Country Club, Birmingham (England), that he still had plenty of golf left in him by shooting eight strokes under par.
The 56-year-old from Malaga, at the time, showed off to celebrate his record, with a total of eight birdies and no errors on his card, and to conclude on the 18th hole with the recognition of his teammates who were waiting for him to finish his round to celebrate his great record of 707 tournaments on the Tour. In the absence of an audience (it was the time of Covid), it was his own teammates who paid tribute to El Pisha for a record that is unlikely to be beaten.
Miguel Angel Jimenez’s version of events before his record
Jiménez acknowledged that when you start out, “you never think what you’re going to achieve. It’s been 32 years moving around the world playing on different circuits. To get to this point and look back is incredible. So many players in those 32 years. I’ve played with Seve (Ballesteros) -our mentor-, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger, Phil Mickelson…. All the different generations. And now with the new ones that are coming“, he declared.
The charismatic Andalusian golfer then pointed out that “during these 32 years it has been incredible, not only because of the 707 tournaments I will reach this week. You never think about how many tournaments you will play in your life. I knew in the last couple of years, the way I’m playing and feeling on the golf course, that this would be the next goal, and here we are,” he added. 
“Looking back, having reflections, I have had some nice experiences. I had my first win in 1992 at the Piaget Open in Belgium. I was Sece’s assistant captain in 1997 at Valderrama before playing my first Ryder Cup in 1999. Looking back, so many great things…. Winning four times in Hong Kong, winning in 2008 at Wentworth, the flagship tournament of the European Tour. The first Spaniard to win what was then the Volvo Marsters at Montecastillo? A beautiful life,” acknowledged the Spaniard. “I don’t know if I want to extend the record. The goal was to get the record and the upcoming tournaments will be good,” he said.
Miguel Ángel Jiménez, a man of record
Another record of the Malaga-born player is the number of holes-in-one. Jimenez is the one who has scored the most holes in one on the European Tour: a dozen, and he has also computed four on the PGA Champions Tour. In February 2022, his victory in the Colaguard Classic, his twelfth in the Champions, was decorated with two holes-in-one.
Ryder Cup player in four editions (1991, 2004, 2008 and 2010) and winner in three of them, and of the World Cup in fourteen (between 1993 and 2013), the thorn that Jiménez has not been able to remove is that of not having triumphed in the PGA Tour. He joined the best circuit in the world in 2020 and of the 153 tournaments he played, his best results were two second and one third place, with 5 top 5 and 17 top 10. His earnings in this circuit amount to a little more than 4 million dollars. 
Miguel Ángel Jiménez and the greats, his path
As for his time in the majors, the player from Churriana has finished nine times in the top ten in his 64 participations, with his best results being a second place in the 2000 US Open, won by Tiger Woods with a stratospheric lead of 15 strokes, and third in the 2001 British Open.
Iconic was also his duel with Tiger Woods in the 1999 American Express World Championship at Valderrama, where Jimenez finished second when the Californian won on the last hole.
The charismatic Spanish player, father of two boys, married to Austrian Susanne Styblo, lover of Iberian ham, good cigars and wines, Ferrari’s and the Caribbean sun (he lives most of the year in the Dominican Republic), has made a great start this season and it is very likely that his good run will continue throughout the year.
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