José María Olazábal
Spain
José María Olazábal Manterola (born 5 February 1966) is a Spanish professional golfer who has enjoyed success on both the European Tour and the PGA Tour, and has won two major championships.
Personal information
Full name José María Olazábal Manterola
Nickname Ollie
Born 5 February 1966 (1966-02-05) (age 46)
Hondarribia, Gipuzkoa
Height 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Weight 160 lb (73 kg; 11 st)
Nationality Spain
Residence Hondarribia, Gipuzkoa
Career
Turned professional 1985
Current tour(s) PGA Tour (joined 2001)
European Tour (joined 1986)
Professional wins 31
Number of wins by tour
PGA Tour 6
European Tour 23 (8th all time)
Japan Golf Tour 2
Best results in Major Championships
(Wins: 2)
Masters Tournament Won: 1994, 1999
U.S. Open T8: 1990, 1991
The Open Championship 3rd/T3: 1992, 2005
PGA Championship T4: 2000
Achievements and awards
World Golf Hall of Fame 2009 (member page)
Sir Henry Cotton
Rookie of the Year
Career outline
Olazábal was born in Hondarribia, a town in the Basque Autonomous Region of Spain. He burst onto the golf scene in as a junior, winning The (British) Amateur Championship aged eighteen. Then, in his rookie professional season of 1986, he finished second on the European Tour Order of Merit aged just twenty. In his first nine seasons, he finished in the top 10 every year except two, including another second place in 1989, and he was a regular member of the top ten of the Official World Golf Rankings (over 300 weeks).Had Olazábal beaten Ian Woosnam at The Masters in 1991 (he finished second) he would have become the World number one. He was unable to play in 1996 due to a foot injury but he recovered and recorded further top ten placings in the Order of Merit in 1997, 1999 and 2000. He has more than twenty career titles on this tour.
Both of Olazábal's majors have come in the United States, namely The Masters in 1994 and 1999. These wins make him the only winner of The Amateur Championship since World War II to have gone on to win a professional major. He has been highly placed in The Masters on a number of other occasions. Olazábal shares the record for the lowest round in the PGA Championship (63), which he accomplished in the third round at Valhalla Golf Club in 2000.
In 2001 Olazábal began to play on the PGA Tour, while also retaining his membership of the European Tour. He had a solid year on the PGA Tour in 2002, when he won nearly two million dollars and came twenty-fourth on the money list, but has not duplicated the success he enjoyed in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. He has six career PGA Tour titles, five of them won before he became a full member of the Tour. In 2006 he made a return to the top fifteen of the world rankings.
Olazábal was a member of the European Ryder Cup team in 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1997, 1999 and 2006. He formed a famous partnership with fellow Spaniard Seve Ballesteros that spanned many years,and formed a similarly successful partnership with Sergio García in 2006.
Olazábal will captain the 2012 European Ryder Cup team for the defence of the trophy at Medinah.
Olazábal also holds the world record distance for a completed putt. During the 1999 European Ryder Cup team's Concorde flight to the United States, he holed a putt which travelled the full length of the cabin. The ball was in motion for 26.17s, during which time the Concorde, at 1,270 mph, travelled 9.232 miles, beating U.S. golfer Brad Faxon's previous record of 8.5 miles, set in 1997.
Olazábal was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2009 with 56% of the vote on the international ballot
Player profile is based on the information provided by www.en.wikipedia.org