Spanish Ryder Cup golfer Jose Maria Olazabal, after weeks struggling to find form
with his wayward driver, opted instead on Monday for a few putts. A few supersonic,
eight or nine-mile putts.
Olazabal was hoping to break Brad Faxon's 1997 world record putt of 8.5 miles
(13 kilometres) during the European team's Concorde flight to the United States.
British Airways
captain Dave Studd said before take-off at London's Heathrow Airport that he would
lend Olazabal his putter for the attempt down the plane's aisle as it flew over
the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound.
He said: "He will stand at the cockpit end, because we fly nose up, and putt downhill.
I've got a stop-watch and I'll time it to one-hundredth of a second. I'll then
work out from our speed how far it has travelled.
"I'm
pretty confident that the record is going to be broken and if he does it I'm going
to have the putter mounted and put on display." The three-day Ryder Cup begins
on Friday at Brookline, Massachusetts.
