The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
McDowell expects flying start
GRAEME McDOWELL believes Europe’s players will start the EurAsia Cup with “all guns blazing” when the inaugural contest gets under way in Kuala Lumpur today.
The European side, captained by Miguel Angel Jimenez, are odds-on favourites to beat Thongchai Jaidee’s Asian team in a contest overshadowed by a bitter dispute involving the family of the late Seve Ballesteros and the European and Asian Tours.
The row has developed because the EurAsia Cup effectively usurps the Royal Trophy, a team contest between Asia and Europe played since 2006 that was Ballesteros’s project and run by his company.
The Royal Trophy was initially approved by the EuropeanTour but business relations between the Tour and Ballesteros’s family firm, Amen Corner, have since deteriorated.
The Ballesteros family were furious that European Tour chief executive George O’Grady claimed Ballesteros would have “cherished” the new contest, releasing a letter from the five-time major winner to the Asian Tour — sent in 2010, a year before his death from brain cancer — urging them not to copy the Royal Trophy.
Jose Maria Olazabal has unsurprisingly sided with his former Ryder Cup partner’s family, but Jimenez, who was vice-captain to Ballesteros at Valderrama in 1997, is relishing his part in the new event.
Jimenez will partner fellow Spaniard Pablo Larrazabal in the opening match at Glenmarie Golf and Country Club against Thai pairing Jaidee and Kiradech Aphibarnrat, while Danish pair Thomas Bjorn and Thorbjorn Olesen take on Japan’s Koumei Oda and Hideto Tanihara in match two.
France’s Victor Dubuisson and Joost Luiten are up against Bangladesh’s Siddikur Rahman and Thailand’s Pray ad Marksaeng, followed by Scot Stephen Gallacher and Gonzalo FernandezCastano against Indian pair Gaganjeet Bhullar and Anirban Lahiri.
McDowell, who sealed the winning point from the final singles match in the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor in 2010, and Welshman Jamie Donaldson take on Kim Hyung-sung and local favourite Nicholas Fung in the final match.
McDowell told European Tour Radio: “The European team is strong and the Asian team on paper does not look as good as Europe but they have the advantage out here with the climate and the golf course set-up and I think it’s going to be a really good weekend.
“Miguel’s great. You need his English translated sometimes it’s such a heavy Spanish brogue but a lot of fun. He is passionate.”
Jimenez added: “I put myself in the first group, I think to see how the rest of the group are doing. Obviously Thongchai is thinking the same thing and we are face to face tomorrow. We will see, let the golf clubs do the talking tomorrow.”
Today’s fourball matches are followed by f ive foursomes to be played tomorrow and 10 singles matches on Saturday.