Mechanic keeps on motoring along

Ryder Cup/Miguel Angel Jimenez profile: A few weeks ago, before Europe's team for the 35th Ryder Cup matches was fully established, the captain Bernhard Langer held a meeting of potential members in a hotel in Akron. It was the Tuesday evening before the NEC Invitational and some of those present knew for sure they would be on the team.

Miguel Angel Jimenez was one of them; yet, for much of the meeting, despite his experience of playing at Brookline in 1999 and of acting as an invaluable assistant to Seve Ballesteros at Valderrama in 1997, the Spaniard didn't say much.

As the meeting was drawing to a conclusion, Langer asked if there were any issues the players would like addressed or if there were any special requirements for the team room at Oakland Hills, and it was only then that Jimenez spoke up.

"Three things," he said. "First, I would like the finest Rioja. Second, I would like the finest cigars. And third, I would like an espresso machine . . . American coffee is terrible."

Jimenez - even more so than Ian Poulter - is likely to be the character of this European team. After all, he's a cigar-chomping 40-year-old from Malaga known as "The Mechanic" for his love of fast cars, although he prefers driving them to fixing them; but it's his hair-style that's the real fashion statement. From the slightly bouffant style he wore in Brookline, he transmogrified it into a Harpo Marx style that turned more ginger as it grew longer and, now, he has added the now trademark ponytail that protrudes from his baseball cap.

If his hair-style causes some amusement among those outside the gallery ropes, it doesn't matter to Jimenez, the fifth of a family of seven brothers who first worked as a caddie in his native Malaga before taking up golf as a 15-year-old.

"It's not by the hairs on your head that you become a good golfer," he said. "I look at my hair and I like it. I wore it long when I was young and I liked the way the wind blew through it when I rode my motor bike. Now, sometimes, I can feel like a young man again."

Certainly, as he heads into his second Ryder Cup appearance as a player, it would seem he has never played better golf, despite his advancing years. With seven wins on the PGA European Tour between his debut season in 1988 and 2003, Jimenez could hardly have realised what was in store for him in 2004 as he became a multiple winner.

His victory in in Munich - the final counting tournament for European Ryder Cup qualification - was his fourth of the year, coming after his successes in the Johnnie Walker Classic, the Portuguese Open and the Asian Open. Of course, Jimenez had long since secured his team place before that fourth win of the season.

To reach this sort of super-stardom, however, has been a long road for Jimenez, who left school early to work part-time as a caddie. When he took up the sport himself, his talent was obvious and he secured a position as an assistant club professional before securing his tour card at the fourth time of asking.

When he won his first European Tour event - the Piaget Open in Belgium in 1992 - the celebrations lasted a week.

In his early days on tour, his influence - not surprisingly - was Seve Ballesteros. "I learnt a lot from Seve, a hell of a lot. Jack Nicklaus, too, was a hero for me but I never saw him play at his best. Seve I had watched closely for many years and I liked the way he played the game and the way he was as a man. He has such feel for the ball it is incredible.

"These days you don't need it so much for the technology is making it easier. It means you can reach a green if you sneeze at the ball. The techniques we used to learn and which we then used to control the ball are being lost little by little. At the same time, something of the essence of the game is being lost too."

Jimenez is very much his own man, both quiet and outspoken. If he perceives something to be wrong, he isn't afraid to say so. Once, a number of years ago, he informed an R&A official at the British Open the food they offered players was so bad, "if I'd given it to my dog, he would have sat down and cried".

More pertinently, Jimenez was one of those European players aghast at the behaviour of the Americans who used the 17th green at Brookline as a dance floor after Justin Leonard holed his raker of a putt in the singles match with Jose Maria Olazabal that ensured a US victory.

"They were like professional ice hockey players or footballers, not professional golfers. The tradition of the Ryder Cup is very important and, if it has to be like this, then I don't want to play in any more Ryder Cups," said Jimenez.

When it was put to him that Davis Love had classified European criticism as that of "sore losers," Jimenez added: "They can't say that, because they wanted to win at any cost . . . the cost was their dignity and our respect for them. The whole world saw their attitude and the way they reacted and they will be the judge."

Those comments about not wishing to play in another Ryder Cup were uttered in the immediate aftermath of Brookline and, as we all know, time can be a great healer. So it is that Jimenez has not only played his way back onto the European team, he has done so in style and is sure to be a key player - on the course and in the team room - as Langer's team seeks to retain the trophy.

"I think we're a great team," he said. "I think everyone's playing very well and it is going to be very close . . . it's like that every year, it seems. Maybe you win by the minimum, a half point or a point. I think it's going to be good."