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Off And Running At Oakland Hills - 17.09.04 | |
| What a start. What a morning. What a partner. They don’t come much better than this. Our Ryder Cup got off to exactly the start we were looking for as Miguel Angel Jiminez and yours truly racked up our first point of the 35th series of matches with a 5 & 4 victory over my good friend Davis Love 111 and Chad Campbell. My preparation had been perfect - culminating in the opening ceremony on Thursday and then a relaxing couple of hours in the team room. Captain Langer did not say a great deal, but he encouraged us to enjoy as much as we could and just to be ourselves and not to be anything that we are not. He has been quite inspiring in a calm, studied manner. Of course not everybody is happy when the first day pairings come out because four players have to sit out when all they want to do is get involved in the action as quickly as possible. David Howell, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey and Thomas Levet did not get any action in the first series and I knew exactly what they were going through. I’d been there and done that on my debut in Valderrama. I had a little word with them all and told them that their chance would come. It was my first time in tandem with Miguel Angel Jiminez, but you’d have thought we’d been playing together for ever. We dovetailed perfectly, established an early lead and never let them into the game once we’d gone three up after five. Davis and Chad never won a hole, but these things happen. The rest of the boys all did their bit and we went into lunch with a three-point lead, but knowing that there is a still a long way to go |
