woosnam's no-chance road to top
Ian Woosnam - humble beginnings.
By Mark Garrod, PA Sport Golf Correspondent
"I'm a farmer's son. I had a one-handicap when I turned professional. I was very erratic. A lot of people said I wouldn't make it. Got no chance." Well, a lot of people were very nearly right. It did not look as though little Ian Woosnam was going to be the big hit in golf he wanted to be. It certainly did not look as though one day he would be Ryder Cup captain. While Sandy Lyle from nearby Shrewsbury took just two years to go from amateur star to European Tour number one, Woosnam's official tour earnings after five years of toil amounted to less than £5,000. And in trying to qualify for the 1981 Open he almost reached breaking point. "I think I shot 67 the first day and then on the 18th hole of my second round I hit it about 10 yards off the tee, over the fence out of bounds," he recalls. "I drove all the way home from Deal up to Shropshire and I thought, 'I'm never going to play golf again.' "After a couple of weeks of cooling down my mum and dad said to me, 'Just give it another try. You haven't given yourself the five years yet."' If he had not taken their advice who knows what might have become of Woosnam? It might have been back to work on the family farm near Oswestry, back to the odd friendly game at the Llanymynech course with its 15 holes in Wales, three in England. You certainly would have got long odds on him joining Lyle and making the first of eight Ryder Cup appearances just two years later, winning the Order of Merit and the World Match Play at Wentworth in 1987, following Lyle and Nick Faldo as Masters champion in 1991 and being world number one for 50 weeks. Now his tour earnings are in excess of £8million and in the captaincy he has been given one of the greatest honours the game has to offer. "It's been quite a good achievement," he says with massive understatement. "Plus I've enjoyed myself along the way." He needed to at times. This is one of his recollections of his early days in the so-called glamorous world of professional golf. "I was penniless. I drove around in a beat-up old camper van playing wherever I could and sleeping in the van. "Apart from my clubs the most important piece of equipment in there was a tin-opener - to take the lid off the tins of beans that I ate all the time. "I remember one year Tony Minshall and I drove the van up to Elgin for a Northern Open. In the morning I heard him growling 'Woosie, it's freezing in here.' I told him to stop complaining, especially as he had his golf waterproofs on to help keep him warm. "Then I looked out of the window and saw there were six inches of snow on the ground. There was no golf, but I well remember somebody organised a disco in the town, which started early and went on late ... I think!" Celebrating a Ryder cup victory on American soil in 1987 must have seemed a world away, but he made that journey and says: "We had some party that night, I can tell you." Despite the understandable nervousness he has had about the public speaking duties that come with the captaincy, he aims to enjoy himself some more in Ryder Cup week. Preferred to Faldo for the job this time around - his former cup partner takes over for the 2008 match in Kentucky - Woosnam admits he would have been "very disappointed" if it had been the other way round. "I'm a Celt and I love it in Ireland. I feel I am very popular there and feel that will be to the benefit of the team. The crowds are going to be fantastic." There was a debate on whether it should have been an Irish captain for the first match on Irish soil, but one of the first things he did on being named - on his 47th birthday - was to call Des Smyth and ask him to be one of his assistants along with close friend Peter Baker and Lyle, who amazingly has not been involved in the match since winning his Masters title back in 1988. Woosnam accepts he has a tough act to follow in Bernhard Langer, who did not appear to put a foot wrong in guiding Europe to its record-breaking nine-point win in Detroit two years ago. The Welshman played no part in that, but was vice-captain to Sam Torrance for The Belfry win in 2002 and Torrance said: "He put the rookies in their places in such a kind, authoritative way. I just thought that's the stuff of great captaincy." Woosnam admired the way Torrance went about his job too, helping to bring back decorum to a match that had become a little too nasty in 1991 and again in 1999. After that second episode Woosnam commented: "I don't see why it should be up to the Europeans to sort things out all the time. I think the Americans will have to look really hard at what goes on when we go over there or sadly the Ryder Cup will come to an end. "The Belfry was a wonderful advertisement for golf, a magnificent experience. I learnt a lot from being on the other side of the ropes with Sam. We've been friends for years, probably because we've spent so much time in the same places - and by that I mean bars! "By the singles I was running around like a headless chicken. Sam was brilliant because he involved everyone in the decision-making process, although he obviously had the final say. "That was entirely different to Valderrama in 1997 when Seve was a one-man band. I was one of the top players at the time, but I was left completely in the dark. "That was a totally unenjoyable week and I really wished I hadn't been there even though we won. I don't like being excluded from anything." Winner or loser is how he will be judged as captain, of course, but making it an enjoyable experience for his team is clearly important too. He once described the fitness-obsessed and practice-obsessed younger generation of players as "boring", adding: "There's no fun out here any more. I could take it or leave it tomorrow - no-one has a drink unless they've missed the cut. "Even during the various Ryder Cup contests I always enjoyed a couple of beers, a glass or two of wine with dinner and a few laughs. That's all gone now and I can't tell you how glad I am I'm not just starting out." Woosnam also doubts if someone of his height - just 5ft 4 1/2in - can make it the way the game has developed. But, after a tough, tough start, make it he most certainly has.
