Legend Rocca warns current crop: Don’t play Tiger at his own game
IT will be fair to assume that the appearance of Tiger Woods at Le Golf National this week should generate a bit more than a nonchalant Gallic shrug, writes Nick Rodger.
It’s France’s turn to experience the tumult of Tiger Mania and the hoopla and hysteria surrounding the 42nd edition of the Ryder Cup has been cranked up to a whole new level given the events in Atlanta on Sunday night.
Nearly 20 years ago, when the transatlantic contest made its last visit to continental Europe in 1997, Woods arrived at Valderrama in Spain as the 21-year-old superstar who had made his major breakthrough earlier in the season with that iconic, historic Masters triumph and was making his debut in the Ryder Cup.
Costantino Rocca was a rookie too but almost twice Woods’s age. In this game, of course, the advancing years are no barrier to success. Rocca would beat Woods by a 4&2 margin during the thrilling Sunday singles as Europe held on for a narrow 14 ½ - 13 ½ victory.
As a resurgent Woods marks his return to the Ryder Cup cut-andthrust for the first time since 2012, the European players will all fancy a crack at him. He’s the one they all want to play.
But what about Rocca in 1997? “I think I was the only one on the team who didn’t want to play Tiger because when it happens you have to do it,” admitted the 61-year-old who would, of course, rise to that particular occasion as Europe completed that task under the passionate, here-there-andeverywhere captaincy of the great Seve Ballesteros.
“You must not show anything to the other guy. I just played my game. Against Tiger you cannot play his game. You must play your game. I was lucky because every time I was playing the second shot first.
“When you put your second shot close you put him under pressure, even Tiger. That round I played really, really well.”
Many may have written off any hope of Woods ever being back at the Ryder Cup after all the physical and personal agonies but Rocca remained confident there would be a positive twist in the Tiger tale.
“When Tiger stopped playing they said he was finished but in my opinion, no,” he said. “I played three or four times with him and he would never lie down. Even if he was three down, he would try to lose two down. That is the spirit of the fight.”
Rocca’s mightily impressive compatriot, Francesco Molinari, is the new Italian standard bearer and his epic Open win, when he stood firm playing alongside Woods on that absorbing final day at Carnoustie, has lifted the quiet but fiercely competitive Turin man into a decorated pantheon.
“Francesco has gone to America in the last few years and it was a good choice, because in America if you don’t putt well you don’t win much,” said Rocca, who had his own stint on the PGA Tour in the mid-1990s. “He always hit the ball fantastically well. But his chipping and putting since he has been in America is now fantastic too. When he chips it, he is looking to hole it.”
Molinari lost to Woods in the singles of the 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor in Wales but earned a halved match when they met again during the Miracle of Medinah two years later as Europe’s epic turnaround was completed on that magical Sunday.
Here in Paris, Rocca is confident Molinari and the rest of Team Europe will rise to the challenge posed by Woods and company.
“At Valderrama they said we didn’t have a chance … but we won,” he said. “Players have to approach it like it is their first Ryder Cup. They have to fight all the way. Every Ryder Cup is not the same. It changes. There are periods when new players come in.
“We cannot say we are not strong enough. If you feel you are not strong then you are beaten before you start. Apart from the majors, the Ryder Cup is the most important event of your life. You have to go to war.”