Just about the time when, at home, he would be taking his siesta, Jose Maria Olazabal went out into a lovely sunny Versailles day, compiled a six-under-par 65 and kick-started his journey to the Ryder Cup.
The Spaniard is two behind Roger Wessels from South Africa and one behind his countryman Miguel Angel Martin but for Olazabal more than most it is imperative that he gets off to a good start. He is going to compete more in America next year, possibly playing sufficient tournaments (15) to keep his US Tour card.
If he does he will probably play only, say, 11 in Europe which, he acknowledges, will make it more difficult to acquire the points necessary to make the team as of right. He would like to do that to give his captain Sam Torrance greater variety of choice, and because a place among the skipper's selections is going to be more difficult this year.
More players are going to spend more and more time in America and they are, necessarily, players of a calibre for inclusion in Europe's best 12. But the European Tour, for totally selfish reasons, has set its face against changing the selection format and has hamstrung itself with 10 automatic places and two captain's picks.
He might find himself having to choose two from Olazabal, Jesper Parnevik, Sergio Garcia, Nick Faldo, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Paul Lawrie, Jean van de Velde and whoever finishes 11th and 12th in the order of merit. It is a ludicrous situation and if it came to pass Europe would find themselves with a team much less than their best: something they transparently cannot afford. And it would be their own silly fault.
This is Olazabal's first points-counting tournament and while he agreed that getting into the team whichever way would be harder than before, he then dismissed the subject by saying that "winning a major or two" would take care of the problem. Perhaps it is advisable to think that way if Tiger Woods is ever to be overcome - the American is 222 under par for the season so far - but Olazabal was grinning broadly when he said it.
The 14-week furore over the Mark James book "Into the Bearpit" breathed its last yesterday. Nick Faldo, who felt aggrieved by the contents of the book, met the author yesterday and, after a brief discussion, managed to mutter: "Whatever Jesse (James) said, it's mutual." Pressed, he added: "We've discussed it, and that's it - it's over and done with."
James, who had waited at the end of his round to catch Faldo as he came off the course and suggest the talks, was more forthcoming. "We had a decent discussion," he said, "and we decided that there are two sides to every argument. We decided we want to move on from here and we agreed that enough has been said.
"We've cleared the air and I think that's the end of the matter." Asked if he was pleased, he said: "Absolutely yes." Asked if the last "t" had been crossed, the last "i" dotted, he said: "I think we'd both be pleased if that's the way it was. We don't want this to be an ongoing argument and I'm sure it won't be now. It's a satisfactory conclusion to the matter."
