Patient Paul finally rewarded

WHEN Paul McGinley stood four over par after five holes last Thursday, not even the player himself could have foreseen that he would depart Valderrama last night as the 2005 Volvo Masters champion.

His opening 74 included a triple bogey seven and a double bogey five and he then dropped a shot at the opening hole on Friday. Amazingly, it was to be his last concession to the fiendishly difficult Valderrama lay-out. He closed the round in 68, added 65 and 67 over the weekend and yesterday emerged a two shot winner on ten under par from Sergio Garcia. It all made for a wonderful occasion for the large Irish contingent in the biggest crowds ever seen at the Spanish venue and not alone establishes the 38 year-old Dubliner among the game’s elite but also leaves him within touching distance of the European Ryder Cup team at The K-Club next September.

He finished third in the European Tour order of merit with 2,296,422 behind Colin Montgomerie (2,794,222) and Michael Campbell (2,496,269), it was his fourth European Tour triumph and his first since the Welsh Open in 2001. This was also by far his largest season’s earnings, beating the 1,464,434 he picked up in 2001 while the winner’s cheque for 666, 660 is the richest of his career.

Since his last victory, McGinley has recorded seven second place finishes, including three in 2005. It was the 38th Irish victory on the European Tour and extends the sequence of Irish victories of at least one every year on the European Tour since 1995.

McGinley went into the final round four shots behind Colin Montgomerie and with a number of other top Europeans in between. However, one by one they faltered as the innate difficulty of the golf course and the importance of the occasion took its toll. But McGinley stood firm. His course management was faultless, a point he proved early on by declining to go for the water-strewn long 4th in two shots. Instead, he wedged to twelve feet and holed the putt. The 490 yards 7th is the toughest par four on the course but he played it beautifully with a drive and four iron to six feet.

And when a nine iron to the 10th finished a foot from the stick, he was tournament leader by two strokes. A succession of pars followed before he again used his head in admirable manner at the diabolically difficult 17th. He again laid up some 110 yards from the target, the perfect distance for a sand iron which he dispatched to six feet and tapped in for a crucial insurance shot. Still calm and composed he hit two beautiful shots to twenty feet at the last to slam the door on his rivals.

“What pleases me most is the size of the title”, he glowed. “I was close on three other occasions this year and to win a title of this size means a huge amount to me against the top sixty players on our tour. Losing to Michael Campbell in the final of the World matchplay hit me as hard as I’ve ever been hit but it also made me more determined. I learned a lot from those losses and I put a lot of what happened in those losses into practice today. There’s a knack to winning and it’s just taken me longer to learn than most people.”

McGinley had many good friends and allies at Valderrama yesterday. He was very grateful to Padraig Harrington for hanging around for the finish and also had a special thought for his other buddy Darren Clarke who had to leave the tournament.

“There’s no deterioration in Heather’s condition but my heart goes out to Darren. The three of us have flown a flag in the past at the Ryder Cup and hopefully we’ll do it again next year in Ireland.”

McGinley stayed throughout the week at Eddie Jordan’s Marbella villa and actually cooked breakfast there yesterday. Jordan admitted that he had backed McGinley at 33/1 before the tournament began but wouldn’t confirm or deny that he had invested 10,000 in the bet. Paul believes he learned a great deal from Jordan when he caddied for him at the German Masters earlier this year.

“I thought I knew him well after twenty years but I saw a new side to him that week”, said McGinley. “People thought it was a joke and we both knew it was going to be seen like that but it was a big thing for me. He’s been very instrumental in this win. You all saw how downhearted I was after losing at Wentworth but it didn’t cross my mind that this day would never come. I felt I’d win a big one because I knew the quality of my golf had gone up a level. I was competing on the big stage and I had not done that in the past. It’s only this year that I’ve done that on an individual basis. But the quality of the shots I’ve been playing, shots I couldn’t have played in the past, the extra distance I’m hitting the ball, the improvement in my short game, all of those things were pointing me in the right direction.”

McGinley is still troubled by dodgy knees and has an appointment for a scan at Windsor Hospital at 8am this morning.

Should that confirm the need for another operation, he will undergo it immediately after the World Cup in three weeks time, pointing out that he now has some leeway and won’t have to rush back like he admits he did the last time. Like McGinley, Padraig Harrington, his partner at Vallamoura, didn’t have a bogey in either of his rounds over the weekend. Could be that even greater things lie in wait before the curtain finally comes down on the season!