Oz in Spain

Spain’s King Juan Carlos was presented with a European team replica polo shirt from the 2012 Ryder Cup’s “Miracle Sunday” when he received the three Spanish members of the triumphant team for a private audience at the Palacio de la Zarzuela. Joining the monarch for a 40-minute chat about the event were captain José María Olazábal, vice captain Miguel Ángel Jiménez (also a vice captain at Valderrama in 1997, when Juan Carlos officially inaugurated the Cup match eventually won by captain Seve Ballesteros’s European team) and the only Spaniard who made the team in Chicago, Sergio García.

Margie Abbott says her husband “gets women” – but Prime Minister Julia Gillard begs to differ. “Do you want to know how God turns a man into a feminist?” the Australian opposition leader’s wife asked in a speech in Sydney. “He gives him three daughters… I’m not a politician and I’m not political – but just don’t ever try and tell me that my husband of 24 years and the father of three daughters is on some anti-women crusade. It’s simply not true. Tony Abbott gets women and… the women in Tony Abbott’s life certainly get him.”

Four days later, Gillard’s feisty response in Parliament, attacking Abbott’s burgeoning history of hypocrisy, left him looking more awkwardly SMUG than touchy-feely Sensitive New Age Guy.

Thrilling, assertive, evolutionary… three eye-catching new models unveiled at the 2012 Paris Motor Show.

Lamborghini Gallardo: The most successful super sports car in Lamborghini’s history has a new design, “even more aggressive and more extreme” – the LP 560-4 and LP 570-4 Edizione Tecnica.

Jaguar F-Type: Returning to the company’s heartland, a two-seater, convertible sports car that is “a continuation of a sporting bloodline that stretches back more than 75 years”.

Porsche Panamera: The aim of the Panamera Sport Turismo concept car is “to show how amazingly intelligent and efficient drive technology might look in the design language of tomorrow”.

OzinSpain has been mildly disparaging about the Ryder Cup in the past (Ryder Hype Runneth Over), arguing that it might be über-significant for US and European players and fans but considerably less so for the overwhelming 90 per cent majority of the rest of the world: i.e. Africa, Asia, South America, Oceania and all the Americas apart from the US. […]

Stacey Keating celebrates with caddie/boyfriend Darren Peters

Australian Nikki Garrett made a scorching start to the 2012 Tenerife Open de España Femenino but it was compatriot Stacey Keating who eventually left Golf Las Américas with the main silverware. […]

When Lieutenant-Coronel Antonio Tejero and his band of military misfits infamously stormed Spain’s Cortes (parliament) on 23 February and shot several machine gun rounds into the air most of the deputies dropped terrified to the floor and hid. Except for three: acting minister of defence and deputy prime minister General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, who remonstrated with Tejero and ordered him to desist, acting prime minister Adolfo Suárez… and Communist Party leader Santiago Carrillo, who calmly lit a cigarette (they were different times) and remained seated.

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The new champion and his wife Alicia Carriles (Photo: Getty Images)

Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño was one of four high-ranked Spaniards hoping to make his Ryder Cup debut this year. In the end he, Rafael Cabrera-Bello, Álvaro Quíros and Pablo Larrazábal fell short in the qualification process – and failed to gain a wild-card selection from captain José María Olazábal to join the only Spaniard in the 2012 team, Sergio García (Miguel Ángel Jimñénez is also one of Chema’s vice-captains). […]

After making his first appearance in a professional event at the same course where his celebrated father made his professional debut, Javier Ballesteros Botín teed up for his second tournament at the emblematic scene of Seve’s final victory. […]

Junta in hot water with European Tour… Sergio García on the way to victory in 2011 (Photo: Fernando Herranz)

Valderrama’s pre-eminent role on the Spanish golfing scene could have come to an undignified end after the effectively 11th hour cancellation of the third edition of the Andalucía Masters, due to be held from 18 to 21 October.

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Sota, Mª Acacia and TV presenter Carlos García-Hirschfeld, in Pedreña in 2009 (Photo: Fernando Herranz)

Severiano Ballesteros was the first Spanish golfer to shine in the international spotlight but it was his uncle Ramón Sota who helped pave the way when the game was effectively in its infancy in Spain.

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