“Let’s Just Call Him Pablo For The Time Being!” Pablo’s French Open Win That Had Monty Chocking On His Words.

1 year ago by Comments Off on “Let’s Just Call Him Pablo For The Time Being!” Pablo’s French Open Win That Had Monty Chocking On His Words.

This week’s FedEx Open de France has produced many memorable champions in it’s 106 year history as the oldest national open title on continentual Europe.

Past winners come no better than Seve Ballesteros who is a four-time former champion. Nick Fado won on three occasions while American greats Byron Nelson and Walter Hagen along with superstar Brits Aubrey Boomer, Henry Cotton, James Braid and JH Talyor names also appear on the gleaming trophy.

And in speaking of Open de France ‘greats’ one cannot forget one of France’s greatest golfers in Arnaud Massey, who captured the opening two Open de France titles in 1906 and 1907, and also two others.

Sixteen years ago in 2008 the event toasted an eighth Spanish-born winner in then 23-year-old Pablo Larrazabal, and what we would see as a most unrattled European Tour rookie competing in only his 16th Tour event of his inaugural season.

Although his past experiences did include The Masters at Augusta – as a caddie for his younger brother Alejandro, British amateur champion in 2002.

Larrazabal’s best finishes prior to the 2008 Open de France were the back-to-back T16th at the Irish Open and then a T15th a fortnight later at the Wales Open.

It all began to change for Larrazabal at a Monday 36-hole qualifier for the Open de France where he secured a tee-time into the prestigious event being held at Golf Le National on the outskirts of Versailles.

Larrazal brilliantly jumped out of the gates with the first round lead thanks to a terrific 65 while a second day 70 had him tied at the top on seven-under with England’s David Lynn while Tour heavyweights Colin Montgomerie and Lee Westwood were two shots back tied in a group with of five in third place at five-under.

On day three Larrazabal was completely unrattled to give new meaning to golf’s traditional ‘moving day’ by posting a four-under 67 and move three shots clear of the field on 11-under.

Now here is the heart of our story with Montgomerie having walked from the scorer’s hut having bogeyed the 15th and 16th holes in his score of 68 to be tied in second place with Swede Soren Hansen at 11-under.

Monty was approached by SKY’s Tim Barter who trod carefully as you do with the big Scot, complimenting Monty on his run of four birdies between the fourth and 10th holes. He’d been out in the third last group on day three with Argentina’s Angel Cabrera, who had captured the 2007 US Open and would win the 2009 Masters.

And then to his credit, Tim delivered a tame question to Monty along the lines: “Colin?  What do you think of how Pablo Larrazabal is playing this week?”

Monty came back to Tim asking:  “Pablo who?”

Tim replied:  “Pablo Larrazabal!”

And standing there recording the interview was Bernie who will never ever forget Monty’s response:  “Well, let’s just call him Pablo for the time being. Okay?”

Monty did not believe the young Larrazabal’s bottle would hold-up over the final day by also saying: “It will be game on and I want to win as  don’t want my victory at the European Open to be the last”.

Pablo had entered the tournament 481st in the world and even described himself as “the 150th best player here”.  He aalso played the four days without a driver in his bag on the firm and bouncy French course.

Despite a prankster changing the name on top of Le National’s Saturday night leaderboard to Olazábal, Larrazábal produced a runaway win in the Open de French Open of which the two-times Masters winning Jose Maria Olazabal champion would have been proud.

Larrazabal clinched the massive £527,800 first prize by four shots with a dramatic and inspired closing round. The result also earned the European Tour rookie a first major start at the following month’s Open Championship while he also secured a place on the circuit for the next two years.

Larrazabal, rated a 200-1 shot before the start, finished on 15 under par with Montgomerie, in easily his best display of the year, runner-up and Westwood, who had been third in the US Open two weeks earlier, dropping to joint fifth after going in the lake on the last.

The young Barcelona golfer found himself into the lake after his win, tossed in by his jubuliant friends while he also threw in his shoes in as the celebrations continued. “I don’t know how it feels – it’s fantastic,” he said. “I really played great golf and my putter was great all week.

Olazabal added: “Beating Montgomerie, one of the three best European players ever, and Westwood, who nearly won the US Open, gives me a great feeling.”

And asked if his role model was Seve Ballesteros, he retorted: “No, I want to hit the ball straighter than that – there is no better role model than Tiger Woods.”

Later that Sunday night – June 29th, 2008 – Spain defeated Germany 1-0 in the UEFA Cup final.

Larrazabal tees-up this week now aged 41-years and a nine-time DP World Tour champion while also having pocketed some $US 13m in prizemoney.

And he still proudly answers to Pablo.



Comments are closed.