Jimenez off to good start at Gleneagles

A year-long marathon to make Europe’s Ryder Cup team entered the final few laps at Gleneagles today, but 46-year-old Miguel Angel Jimenez did not appear to be feeling the strain.

Pushed down into the ninth and last automatic qualifying spot by Peter Hanson’s Czech Open win on Sunday, Jimenez made a late decision to play in the Johnnie Walker Championship rather than take the week off.

That meant missing his nephew’s wedding – unless he misses the cut tomorrow night – but the Dubai Desert Classic and French Open champion was off to a good start.

Under threat from his fellow Spaniard Alvaro Quiros and England’s Ross McGowan and Simon Dyson, Jimenez birdied the 350-yard 11th, his second hole.

Jimenez went to two under by splashing out of sand to eight feet and making the putt on the long 16th, but he was still one behind new leader David Lynn, who birdied the 11th, 16th and 18th to turn in 33.

Hanson, eighth on the points table, also made three there, but had bogeyed the 208-yard 10th, while Dyson and Quiros were also level par after two and McGowan one over.

The Surrey golfer has battled knee, wrist and shoulder problems this year and now needs a top-two finish on Sunday just to have a chance, while Dyson and Quiros both have to win and hope other results go their way.

McGowan, however, was in agony with his shoulder and slumped to four over after seven, while Quiros bogeyed the 13th and 15th.

Early leader on two under was another English player, Robert Rock, who last hit the headlines at the Irish Open when he was among the halfway leaders before being disqualified for a scorecard blunder.

The other player in the mix for a guaranteed place in Colin Montgomerie’s side is Italian Francesco Molinari, but at sixth in the standings it would take an extraordinary sequence to knock him out.

That being the case, Montgomerie had to be paying close attention to what Molinari’s brother Edoardo was doing with a possible view to handing him one of his three wild cards and pairing them up at Celtic Manor in October.

To do that, however, Montgomerie would have to leave out two of the so-called ’FedEx Four’ – Paul Casey, Padraig Harrington, Luke Donald and Justin Rose – who declared two weeks ago that they would not be travelling to Scotland.

Casey, Harrington and Donald could all have qualified through the final counting event, but are at the opening event of the FedEx Cup play-offs in America instead.

Jimenez went to two under by splashing out of sand to eight feet and making the putt on the long 16th, but he was still one behind new leader David Lynn, who birdied the 11th, 16th and 18th to turn in 33.

McGowan, however, was in agony with his shoulder and slumped to four over after seven, while Quiros bogeyed the 13th and 15th.