MAUREEN MADILL COLUMN: Oh Brother!
Spain’s Manuel Elvira after an agonising finish at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. (Photo: DP World Tour/Getty)
Nowadays, it’s only on high days and holidays that I ever feel sick watching golf on the telly – but that’s what I felt watching Manuel Elvira playing the last at Wentworth last Sunday. The occasion was the DP World Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship, and there was a stellar cast of characters in the mix right up until the final knockings.
Manuel, younger brother of three-time DP World Tour winner Nacho, had more than a solid career in the amateur ranks, representing Spain on numerous occasions, culminating in 2016 in the World Amateur Team Championships. Turning pro in 2018 he eventually forged his way to the DP World tour in 2024, garnering six years of experience on the Alps and Hotel Planner Tours (formerly the Challenge tour) along the way.
Last Sunday this 30-year old from Santander found himself in rarefied air sitting on the same score of 15 under as three Major champions, Rory McIlroy, Aaron Rai and Adam Scott. The difference was the latter three were all in the clubhouse, their campaigns completed. Elvira was on the West Course’s notoriously 17th tee with no previous experience of a professional win to help him on his way.
He couldn’t have dreamt of a more fairytale execution of the famous par five. A fairway finder off the tee, a long, low, drawing iron from over 280 yards to twelve feet and an eagle putt that never looked like going anywhere else but into the hole. In one leap he was 17 under and tied with J J Spaun, another Major champ, who was just wrapping up his championship on that very number.
It was riveting stuff. There’s nothing better in sport than seeing an unfancied contender triumph, knocking the big boys all out of the way. But it’s certainly not easy and sport is so, so cruel. On this occasion it offered so much only to snatch it all away at the last gasp.
And so, to the closing hole – an eminently birdieable par five. Four for the win, five for a play-off, six for outright second. Elvira took seven heartbreaking shots, hitting every one of them – no penalties involved. He left the final green with his big brother’s arm around him trying to process just what had happened. In the space of 20 minutes, he had gone from experiencing a perfect eagle on the penultimate hole to the most disappointing moments of his entire career – and all in the most public, and lonely, of arenas.
I’m sure there will have been much reflection over the past week and the only way to prosper in the future is to take all the positives from the experience. There were early signs that Elvira was attempting to do just that. Not many minutes after the awful experience of that final hole he said:
“I’ve played some of the best golf probably of my life. I was in contention and I wasn’t really that nervous. Maybe coming to the 72nd hole but I managed to hit a good tee shot and unfortunately hit a bad second shot. It’s been a great week and I’m really glad for it.”
The harsh truth is that those three extra shots he played down that final stretch of golfing terrain cost him over one million dollars, life-changing money for a journeyman pro.
One thing about sport is the people playing it never, ever know at the time when their peak is, or is likely, to be. They only ever know in retrospect. Of course, we all hope and believe that the best is yet to come but it is only in hindsight that we see our whole journey. Is this championship joint runner-up position amongst a quartet of major champions destined to be Manuel’s career highlight – or is it going to provide a springboard to bigger and better things? I do so hope it’ll be the latter.
On our own much more humble level we, the ordinary golfers, can empathise with Elvira, most of us having experienced a little of what he went through. How often in striving to win a club match, the monthly medal or the money in the weekly fourball have we messed up? We’ve knocked it out of bounds, duffed a chip, shanked it out of a bunker – all at the precise moment we’ve needed our best efforts.
I recall as a teenager having an 18-inch putt on the final green at Castlerock to win my first-ever Ulster Championship. There was a sizeable gallery round the green and I remember the gasp of disbelief as I didn’t even hit the hole. I managed to pull myself together and hit a stonking drive down the 19th only to find my ball slap bang in the middle of a deep divot hole. I hadn’t the skill to cope and lost at the first tie hole. I was devastated – it was my equivalent of the BMW PGA Championship.
The post event analysis and how you frame the experience to yourself is crucial for the player. Yes, be realistic in what let you down – your thinking, execution, whatever – but be realistic in what you also excelled at. You wouldn’t have been in the position to blow it in the first place without those skills having come to the fore.
I was fortunate in having people around me who helped me frame the experience more positively than negatively and that contributed to helping me move on and grasp future opportunities rather than shying away from them. It’s an uncomfortable old game, this golf, and the more you accept that and become accustomed to operating in that testy environment the better you’ll cope.
Hopefully, Manuel Elvira will train on, to use racing parlance. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for the affable Spaniard from now on.