www.globalgolfpost.com
MARCH 19, 2012
LEWINE MAIR
E-MAIL LEWINE
ANDALUCIA, SPAIN |
Matteo Manassero
is not up there with Rory McIlroy, at least
as yet. But his record-equalling 64 in the
first round of the Andalucian Open at
Aloha once again had everyone speaking
about the two players in the same breath.
The Italian had a frugal 24 putts on greens
as heavily dipping and heaving as those
at Augusta where, regrettably, he might
struggle to be from 5-8 April.
“It was one of those good days,” said a
beaming Manassero, who will be 19 next
month. “I made 90 per-cent of my birdie
chances and I played with Miguel (Angel
Jimenez), which was such fun.”
The charms of Aloha added to every-
body’s feel-good factor that morning. The
spectators, when they were not admiring
the golf, were marvelling at mountain
views punctuated by conifers as rigidly
erect as church steeples. Manassero, for
his part, was revelling in the fact that this
was his sort of course, one where distance
control and strategy were all-important.
Back in Italy, they have been asking
Alberto Binaghi, Manassero’s long-time
coach, “What has happened to your boy?”
In the people’s eyes, the lad was in a
slump because he had not won since last
April’s Maybank Malaysian Open. Irritated
though Binaghi has sometimes felt at
that line in questioning, he has always
explained, patiently, that Manassero has
continued to do distinctly well for one so
young. Even if he had not won for a third
time, he had succeeded in finishing in 31st
place on the 2011 Order of Merit.
Before coming to Aloha, Manassero
was sixth in Abu Dhabi prior to reaching
the second round of the WGC-Accenture
Match Play. There, he lost to Martin Laird
by 2 and 1 in a cracker of a second-round
match in which the Scot made an
unanswerable seven birdies.
Manassero was probably as disap-
pointed with his 2011 results as any of
those concerned Italians, at least until
Binaghi argued it out with him at the turn
of the year.
“I told him that his attitude was bad,”
said Binaghi. “After he won in Malaysia,
he was expecting to win a tournament a
month but that was never going to hap-
pen. He started pushing too hard and that
eventually affected his putting. He was too
easily frustrated and he stopped smiling.
“I reminded him that when he won
his tournaments, he wasn’t expecting so
much of himself and that his attitude was
all the better for it.”
Binaghi, when he was on Tour, played
alongside such greats of the game as Gary
Player, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Seve
Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal. As
he watched Manassero over the sec-
ond nine of his 64, Binaghi spoke of how
Manassero reminded him of no one as
much as Langer.
“When Langer couldn’t do a shot he
didn’t do it,” said the coach. “He chopped
out sideways and went from there. Mat-
teo is like that. Very good on strategy. He
is not like Rory, who can kill a course with
his length. There are no ‘gimme’ fours at
the par fives for him. He has to work for
his birdies.”
Mind you, none of his nine birdies
looked difficult last Thursday, with one
great putt after another subsiding bang in
the middle of the cup.
When it was put to Manassero on
Thursday night that it must be “important”
to him to be at The Masters, he shrugged
off that word straightaway.
“It’s not ‘important’ to play at Augusta
but it would be nice. I’ve been once and
it would be good to go back but there are
other events. Morocco, Sicily and Malaysia,
for a start.”
In other words, he has taken heed of
Binaghi’s advice not to be in so much of
a hurry – an approach which could serve
him equally well when, finally, he gets
behind the wheel of that BMW. l
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