Miguel Angel Jimenez on… Meeting his wife, Ryder Cup captaincy, & his favourite course

Jimenez’ Ryder Cup teammate and European Tour contemporary Thomas Bjorn agrees. “Miguel enjoys everything about the lifestyle of the game,” the Dane has said. “He embraces it all and enjoys himself.”

That much is clear when you talk to him. “The main thing is that I love what I do with my life,” says Jimenez. “I love to compete. It’s the only thing I know how to do. It’s having that desire to compete that gives me motivation and is what makes me want to get up in the morning and go to work.

“I love to take care of myself” – Miguel Angel Jimenez

“I love to practice, I love to go to the gym and I love to take care of myself. It’s something that you need to have, particularly as you get older, but I have that passion – passion for the competition.”

Read more -> 11 times Miguel Angel Jimenez was our hero

CONTINUES BELOW…

He’s as straight-shooting in conversation as he is on the golf course. He says Carnoustie is his favourite course because “it makes you think more than any other golf course. You need to think where you want to put the ball with every single shot you hit. If you don’t think, you can’t enjoy.”

Asked to name the toughest opponent he has ever come up against, he is equally forthright. “When you play well,” he says slowly, “the opponent does not matter.”

The story of how Jimenez met his second wife, Susanne, is perhaps the most ‘Jimenez’ story ever recorded. It was 2011. He had divorced from his previous wife a year earlier and was playing in Austria when he noticed a woman – as it turned out, a woman ten years his junior – following his group.

CONTINUES BELOW…

“I leaned over and said to my caddie, I see a beautiful blonde over there, wearing nice pants with a beautiful ass’,” he told Sports Illustrated last year. “‘I want to know exactly where she is on every part of the golf course’.

“I would be waiting for my turn to hit, and I’d look over at her. Our eyes locked for a moment. I smiled and she smiled back. When I went to the driving range, I saw her there and we started talking.” The couple were married three years later.

“I have had a great career,” he acknowledges with a nod. “I’m fortunate to have played on the tour for almost thirty years, to have been involved in Ryder Cups and to have 21 victories.

“And people now know who Miguel Angel Jimenez is. They seem to enjoy watching me. I think they like my character. I’m not a shy person. I like to entertain. I think it’s important to be like that.

<<< PREVIOUS PAGE                                   NEXT PAGE >>>

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor