THE PICTURE YOU MAY NEVER SEE AGAIN ...
Padraig Harrington’s love affair with the Ryder Cup may be over after he was yesterday left out of the team to face America next month. The three-time Major winner (pictured after Europe’s win in 2010) lost out when the wildcard picks went to Ian Poulter and Nicolas Colsaerts
HOW many times do you have to be told you’re squandering a fantastic talent before the message finally begins to sink in?
How far do you have to fall before the penny drops?
‘I must have been told a million times before I had my mid-life crisis at the age of 25,’ said Nicolas Colsaerts, the only rookie in Europe’s Ryder Cup team.
‘Some people wait until they’re 45 to have one but mine came early.’ At the time, he had not only lost his privileges to play on the European Tour but its subsidiary, the Challenge Tour, as well.
Four years on, he walked into the ballroom of the Gleneagles hotel yesterday after being named along- ongside Ian Poulter as one of captain Jose Maria Olazabal’s two wildcards.
What will the first Belgian to play in the Ryder Cup bring to the team? Colossal hitting, a wonderfully deadpan sense of f humour and a talent that, thankfully, has ultimately been n realised. When you hear his story, no wonder he says: ‘I am proof that anyone can do it.’
Let’s go back to 2009, then, where we find Colsaerts so far down the pecking order he is s playing in French mini- tour r events. The house music devo- otee has reduced everyone who o knows him to banging their ir heads against a wall in despair.
He comes to his senses by y spending a couple of winters in Australia, not wandering the he Outback but still i n relative tive seclusion, among close friends in Brisbane. At the time he has a world ranking of 1,305. When you fall so far and rise into the top 35, no wonder a Ryder Cup captain is so keen to give you the call.
In one sense Colsaerts might be t he c omplete antit hesis of Poulter. The latter has always made the most of every ounce of talent he’s got. What links them is their passion to play under Olazabal in Chicago.
‘Nicolas showed me he wanted to be part of this team, he made the extra effort,’ said Olazabal.
It involved countless trips crisscrossing the Atlantic, until he finished at Gleneagles last week, completely spent. As he puts it, he was taking part in the local sport when Ollie finally came on the phone. What’s the local sport, then? Fishing? — ‘Drinking.’
Sunday night, he was summoned into a room full of people plus Olazabal. ‘It was like a scene out of
The Godfather,’ he said. ‘ For a minute I was wondering whether I’d been called in because that’s the best way to break bad news, face to face. Fortunately, Jose quickly put my mind at rest.’
Colsaerts comes from a long line of good sportsmen. His greatgrandfather represented Belgium in the Olympics at the rather intriguing combination of water polo and basketball. His dad Patrick was a field hockey star for 20 years. Now he has achieved his own moment of sporting history for his nation.
‘I got the idea that if Belgium was to ever get on the sporting map at golf it came down to me,’ he said. ‘Of course it is a very small sport back home. I’m not going to confuse myself with what Eddy Merckx did in cycling or anything like that. I am never going to be as famous as someone like him. But I have written my own little sporting chapter and I feel proud about that. I spoke to my mum [Danielle] just before I came in here and we talked about that. There were a few tears.’
Finalist at last year’s Volvo World Match Play, he went one better this year, beating Ryder Cup teammates Paul Lawrie and Graeme McDowell in the semi-final and final respectively.
Why does he have a penchant for matches over 18 holes? He cites belting the ball past nearly everyone he plays and its inevitable consequence, the chance to make lots of birdies.
He talks about what happens down the closing holes in any match, when everything gets a little intense. ‘What can I say? I love those moments when you need to focus that bit harder. I love matchplay,’ he said.
So nervous in the days leading up to yesterday’s big announcement, Colsaerts feels an inner calm now as he builds up to the match itself.
Some rookies just drown in a sea of nervous nausea, but Colsaerts, perhaps understandably given his eventful journey, has that inner confidence that is simply priceless in cauldrons like Medinah.
Another month or so, and all Europe might have cause to celebrate the f act that, j ust occasionally, a mid-life crisis can occur long before mid-life.