Miguel Angel Jiménez will roll the dice one last time this season as he aims to secure a place on the European Ryder Cup Team, armed with intimate knowledge of Prosper Golf Resort for the Czech Open 2010.
Jiménez is currently eighth in the European Ryder Cup standings ahead of the penultimate event in the qualifying race as he looks to seal his fourth Ryder Cup appearance. His place is under threat, with nine players automatically qualifying, but his familiarity with a layout he co-designed could be the ace up his sleeve.
The 46 year old Spaniard has already won twice this season, capturing the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and the Alstom Open de France, to take his total number of European Tour victories to 17, and he needs a good week in the Czech Republic, particularly as he is not currently planning on playing at Gleneagles in the final qualifying event.
“It is a very important week for me as I am on the borderline of The Ryder Cup and need to get some points,” he said. “It’s a big week for a lot of people but for me, it is my last chance to make the team.”
Jiménez designed the two hilly courses at Prosper Golf Resort in Čeladná, which opened in 2001 and 2003 respectively, with accuracy in mind as narrow tree-lined fairways are typical. Both the Old Course and the New Course are cocooned within the Beskydy Mountains, offering stunning views. This year’s Czech Open will be played over a composite of the two courses, taking nine holes from each.
“They are very natural golf courses and they make you think,” added Jiménez. “The key is being very straight off the tee. You need to also be very good with the short game. I am proud to have co-designed this with the owner. It is the only course I have designed which hosts European Tour competition and I am looking forward to playing a tournament there for the second time.”
The man who lived up to the venue’s name and prospered last season was Sweden’s Oskar Henningsson, who claimed his first European Tour title in style, coming from five shots off the lead at the halfway stage to take the title by three shots.
In triumphing, Henningsson added his own numbers to golf’s record books, becoming not only the 31st player to graduate from the Qualifying School and post a win the following season, but also only the third player behind Gordon Brand Jnr and José Maria Olazábal to triumph the season after winning the Final Stage itself which he did at PGA Golf Catalunya in November 2008.
Henningsson has struggled to regain that form this season as swing changes he undertook over the winter have bedded down but he still watches videos from last year’s event to remind himself of that memorable victory.
“I'm really looking forward to going back there,” he said. “It was my first victory on The European Tour so I'm looking forward to going back and seeing the place again.”
Henningsson has big plans for the future and although he won, he felt he needed to reshape his swing to fulfil his longer term ambitions.
“I took a good decision with my coach after I won, because there were a lot of technical details and things to improve,” he explained. “It was my first year on Tour last year, so I knew I had to do it sometime and it felt like a really good occasion to do it when I knew I had a two year exemption.
“It has taken six months to really get it in shape and starting to feel better now. I have higher goals to achieve and I think I needed to undertake these changes.”
The Czech Open 2010 could have a significant bearing on the shape of The European Ryder Cup Team bound for The Celtic Manor Resort in Wales from October 1-3 with players such as Simon Dyson looking to follow his impressive performance in last week’s US PGA Championship with another high finish as he makes a late bid for the team.
Ross McGowan, 11th in the European Points List, Peter Hanson in 15th position and Oliver Wilson in 18th are in a similar situation, knowing that victory or a high finish could propel them into the Ryder Cup reckoning heading into the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles, the final event of the year- long Ryder Cup qualifying campaign.
