DiMarco puts down early Ryder Cup marker
DiMarco isn’t one of the most popular of American golfers and certainly has one or two annoying traits.
Fist pumping, I suppose, has its place in sport - even cricketers indulge in it all the time now. Touring golf pros do a lot of it as well, none more so than DiMarco, who always seems to be very much in your face and winding guys up, especially in a matchplay situation.
Accordingly, it must have dented many European egos when DiMarco made his first ever appearance on the European Tour a winning one in Abu Dhabi. The fact that he did so with his wife, Amy, on the bag won’t have helped their frame of mind.
He has given a considerable boost to American morale as the Ryder Cup psychological battles gain momentum.
Colin Montgomerie admitted as much when he grudgingly commented: “With Tom Lehman sending out letters of encouragement to some 100 players, there’s a definite awareness. They don’t want to lose the Ryder Cup three years in-a-row. We know that and have to prepare for that and I’m sure we will. But Chris coming here to Abu Dhabi and winning is a big psychological plus for them.”
Chris and Amy will be at The K-Club in September but not in the same roles as they filled last week. Said DiMarco: “I don’t think that she should be subjected to that type of atmosphere. I don’t think that she would want to. The great thing about the Ryder Cup is that you have that alliance, like for her, she and all the wives get together and they all have that same thing and the players the same thing and the caddies the same thing. I certainly would not want her to cross that. She is a tour wife and she has her friends out there.
“She knows what she’s doing. She’s very good at caddying, she knows her job. She did it for me for a couple of years but that was about eight years ago. She can caddie whenever she wants. But I certainly don’t think that she would want to caddie in the Ryder Cup.”
All very true although it will be lost on very few observers that DiMarco himself is the very guy most likely to create the kind of atmosphere he referred to and which the Ryder Cup could often do without. Nevertheless, he and Amy combined to put four of the top 11 players in the world and a number of European team candidates in their place over the weekend and Tom Lehman will be proud of him for doing so.
Still, there were bright spots from a European perspective with Henrik Stenson again demonstrating what a rich talent he is. DiMarco admitted that the Swede was knocking his drives seventy yards beyond him in Sunday’s final round and that “my ego won’t allow me to go any further than that.”
DiMarco has moved up to ninth in the latest world rankings and Stenson improved four places to 28th for finishing second. It is difficult to imagine Stenson not being among Woosnam’s rookies at The K-Club. His levels of consistency are remarkable and while he has yet to win on the European Tour, he is now third in the Ryder Cup world points list.
Also in the top ten in Abu Dhabi were Sergio Garcia and Colin Montgomerie, both already guaranteed their places, along with Miguel-Angel Jimenez and Ian Poulter, two of the heroes of Oakland Hills but now with some leeway to make up in the points race.
While this continues to happen Padraig Harrington sticks rigidly to his nine-week break from the competitive scene, quietly accepting that he will be way back in the pack when he finally resumes in just under a month’s time.
Darren Clarke is another who has lost ground on the pacesetters but at least he hopes to start putting matters right with his first appearance since mid-December in the Qatar Masters. He plans to move on to Dubai next week and from there to California for a succession of tournaments culminating in the Accenture World Match Play, which he won in 2000, at the end of February. Whether he can adhere to that schedule, though, remains in doubt, given his wife’s continuing battle with cancer.
Paul McGinley hopes to further strengthen his grip on a team place in a very similar programme to Clarke’s although he won’t be in Dubai while Qatar’s first prize of €275,456 is also very much in the sights of Lee Westwood, David Howell, Thomas Bjorn, Stenson and Poulter. Woosnam will be present to cast a captain’s eye over developments.
And he can relax in the knowledge that neither DiMarco nor any other American Ryder Cup player has entered, so the biggest threat to a European winner may well be Ernie Els of South Africa or Fiji’s Vijay Singh.
