Open Championship 2013: Bill Elliott blog

WHATEVER happens from here on in, Miguel Angel Jimenez will enjoy this Open Championship. At 49, recovering from a broken leg and nursing a left elbow with inflamed tendons the old boy is having a ball at Muirfield.   If he is still in contention when Sunday comes he will approach his final round the way he always does these days...he will have some breakfast and then retreat to an outside space with a double espresso and one of his favourite cigars. There he will sit quietly and think about this and that while his girlfriend sits nearby and keeps quiet.   For half an hour each morning he also stretches to get his back, his front and his sides moving. He is not unfit but neither is he fit. At least not in the Tiger way. Gyms are okay, he says, but they are rather dull places and Jimenez tries hard not to do dull.   "If I was not a golfer then I would like to be a pilot, " he said. "By pilot I mean an F1 pilot. Not planes, I don't like planes but I do like fast cars and driving. Other people can do what they wish but we are all different. For me life is for living, so I have my wine and my cigars, my girlfriend and my sons. Tonight we will have some dinner and then I will have another cigar. What time will I go to bed? When I want to, might be early might be not so early."   It is hard not to like Miguel so none of us try to. Instead those of us of a certain age cherish him, a throwback to a different time and an era when sportsmen were not automatons and gyms were alien terrain for pro golfers.   One day he will be a great Ryder Cup captain, maybe in the USA in 2016 and certainly by Paris two years later. It is a no-brainer. Life IS for living and with Miguel in it, it is also more fun. Good luck this weekend amigo.