smells like team spirit for spaniards
Another big win for Garcia and Olazabal.
By Frank Malley, PA Chief Sports Writer, Dublin
Sergio Garcia and Jose Maria Olazabal bear-hugged each other like long lost brothers. The crowd chanted "Ole, ole ole" and once more the Spanish dream team had turned the scoreboard European blue. If Tiger Woods wanted to know the meaning of team in sport he should have been down on the 16th green as Garcia and Olazabal finished off Phil Mickelson and Chris DiMarco in the second-day morning fourballs with the sort of coup de grace which has sparked comparison with the work of the finest matadors in their homeland. Garcia speared his bunker shot to a foot for another convincing three and two victory and immediately lavished praise on his team-mate. Garcia said: "Jose played amazing. He didn't miss a fairway. He was awesome." With rain cascading and the swiftest of lunches in prospect it was perhaps understandable he failed to mention Olazabal's exquisite short game and precision putting. And yet the truth is that the most impressive thing about this Spanish pair has nothing to do with golf. It has to do with pride and honour and, above all, passion. Watching Woods and Mickelson this week has been to witness men writhing with their inadequacies in the team format. Men consumed with individual triumphs, so much so that they appear incapable of inspiring the lesser mortals around them. To watch Garcia, however, has been to understand what the Ryder Cup is all about. But while Garcia is the life and soul of this European party and inevitably attracts the most lenses and the biggest headlines for his youthful zest, let's not forget Olazabal. It is almost 20 years since a 21-year-old Olazabal performed an impromptu jig at the point of victory in his first Ryder Cup at Muirfield Village. Since then he has formed the most formidable partnership in the history of the competition, winning 15 out of 17 matches as the steady foil to the swashbuckling Seve Ballesteros. And yet before this week he had not played in the event since the Americans stampeded over his putting line on the final green at Brookline in 1999. His omissions had eaten away at him. So much did he want another bite of the action that he turned down offers to be assistant captain to both Sam Torrance and Bernhard Langer. Eventually his reward came once more - at the age of 40. That is the passion, Woods and Mickelson take note, which the Ryder Cup requires and which was in evidence as the Spaniards laughed and joked their way around the K Club apparently regardless of the monsoon rains which periodically swamped the course. Take the par five 568 yards fourth when Olazabal splashed out of the deep greenside bunker to 18 inches and looked across at his partner, about to play his own chip, and said: "Get inside that." He could not, neither could the Americans and the crowd roared with laughter. That was the way the entire round, Garcia giggling with the caddies, Olazabal more naturally po-faced but still clearly enjoying his morning's work. By contrast, for American golfers, banking cheques appears to be their major source of enjoyment. The golf itself so often appears a chore. It certainly seemed that way as Mickelson traversed from one rough-laden lie to another, curiously quiet, not a single birdie until he rolled in a 12-foot putt at the 14th. By then the Spaniards were already four up, a beautiful 12-foot putt from Olazabal producing a flurry of high-fives at the eighth and a 15-footer for birdie dropping at the 10th. At which point Garcia made great play of telling his older partner to stay where he was while he retrieved his ball from the hole for him. Not so much a concession to age, although Olazabal's knees would have appreciated the gesture, as a recognition of genius. For his own part Olazabal, a likely captain in Chicago in six years time, was quick to acknowledge the zest 26-year-old Garcia brings to the course and to the team room. "He's young, that sums it up," said Olazabal. "He is full of energy and loves this event. "I just know that whenever you play with a guy like that you are relaxed. You know you can count on him on pretty much every hole." For all their majors and millions the same simply cannot be said for Woods and co.
