Brookline nerves still give Lawrie the shakes

Golf Correspondent

Wednesday 22 August 2012

This time last year, the prospect of a Scot barging his way into the European Ryder Cup team seemed as unlikely as two women getting membership at Augusta National.

Paul Lawrie hit the first tee shot at the 1999 Ryder Cup and is back in the team after a return to form. Picture: SNS

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Nick Rodger

It's amazing what can happen in a few months.

Here at a sodden Gleneagles, this week's £1.4m Johnnie Walker Championship over the PGA Centenary course will bring the curtain down on qualification for Jose Maria Olazabal's team which will travel to the USA next month to defend the trophy at Medinah in Chicago. Paul Lawrie doesn't have to worry himself about any of that, though.

Safely tucked inside the upper echelons of the European points list, the 43-year-old Aberdonian has already done enough to secure a return to the cut-and-thrust of the transatlantic scuffle for the first time since 1999."It's nice that it's obviously done," said a relaxed looking Lawrie ahead of an event which could still see Belgium's Nicolas Colsaerts plunder the one final automatic place with a share of second on Sunday night. "It's been at the back of my mind and the front of mind for a quite a while as you can imagine. It's hard to get away from such a big tournament. I'm pretty chuffed."Lawrie's rousing renaissance, which began with victory in the Andalucian Open back in March 2011, has been one of the most uplifting stories in domestic golfing circles. His second place finish in the end-of-season Dubai World Championship at the tail end of the campaign gave his Ryder Cup ambitions a huge early lift in the qualifying race, before he cemented his position in the team-winning places during the first five months of 2012 with a fine victory in the Qatar Masters, a run to the semi-finals of the World Matchplay and a joint runners-up finish in the flagship BMW PGA Championship. After a 13-year absence, Lawrie will be back in Team Europe. The only player to have waited longer for a return to the fray than the Scot was Irishman Christy O'Connor, who played in 1975 and again in 1989. Older and wiser, Lawrie knows what to expect from the fraught arena that he is about to be plunged back into. As a Ryder Cup rookie at raucous Brookline in 1999, the Open champion of that year faced the daunting prospect of bashing away the very first tee-shot of the opening foursomes, in partnership with Colin Montgomerie, who would be barracked mercilessly by the rowdy home crowd."I'm not sure if that opening shot will ever go away from me," added Lawrie, as he reflected on a debut which eventually spawned an impressive haul of 3½ points out of a possible five. "I still wake up with wee shivers of it. It wasnae great. I was glad I did it but you're standing there and everything's moving apart from the ball. I'd have taken any shot out of the bag, as long as I didn't miss it. "If I had to do it again, I think I'd have to pass the baton on. I've been there and done that. I'll let someone else have the nerves."It will be a little bit different this time. I was a rookie, but I'd also won the Open so that was a strange feeling. "There will still be nervousness. Every player, if they are honest, will agree to that. You don't want to let people down, you want to do your best and you want to win points."There will, no doubt, be plenty of nerves in the Lawrie camp when he strides out on to the first tee at Medinah, but two people who will be left chewing their finger nails from a distance will be his sons, Craig, 17, and Michael, 13.Avid golfers and keen supporters of their old man, they have often been credited by Lawrie as two of the most instrumental factors in his own resurgence – "they are very competitive and that drives me on, the fact that I want to be a decent player for them" – but the teenagers will have to settle for a place in front of the television when the action begins."For me it's not an environment for a 13-year-old boy to be at," Lawrie said. "We [along with wife Marian] both felt it's so busy, you're not going to see anything and if Marian is walking [inside the ropes] with another wife, who's going to look after the boys behind the ropes? I think they were both expecting that they were going to be coming, but they're nae!"Michael said 'I assume we are coming' and Marian said 'No, you're going to stay at home and watch it on telly'. I think he was a wee bit disappointed."There's not been much disappointment for the Lawrie clan recently, mind you.

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Brookline nerves still give Lawrie the shakes

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