Francesco - The Fantastic!

The Open Champ & Ryder Cup Hero On Going Head-To-Head With Tiger, Dealing With Pressure, & Recalling A Group Cry

EDITOR’S NOTE

After Francesco Molinari’s amazing 2018 season, including a victory in the Open Championship at Carnoustie, an eight-stroke win on the PGA Tour and a 5-0 record in Europe’s Ryder Cup beat down outside Paris, he was interviewed in Italian by Massimo De Luca, Editor-in-Chief of Il Mondo del Golf Today, Golf Digest’s affiliate in Italy.

WHEN DID YOUR LOVE OF GOLF BEGIN?

I wasn’t even 5 when I began swinging the golf club. In the Molinari family, golf was a passion. My grandparents played, especially my paternal grandparents, and my parents ended up being single-digit-handicappers. But kids under 8 weren’t allowed at their golf club in Torino, which later became our club. So Edoardo [Francesco’s older brother, winner of the 2005 U.S. Amateur and now a tour pro] and I practiced when we would go to Sestriere, the ski town built by the Agnelli family [industrialist Gianni Agnelli was one of the richest men in Italy], where there was an 18-hole course. I had to wait to go to the Golf Club Torino. I got my handicap around 10 years of age. At 12, it was down to 12, and at 16, I was scratch.

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOU WERE REALLY GOOD AND MIGHT HAVE A PRO CAREER?

Not until I was in university. While we were in high school, Edoardo and I could only practice Wednesday afternoons and on the weekends because of school. My father was really clear: First we had to get degrees, and then we could decide what to do in the future. He was unyielding. And so that’s what we did: I got a degree in economics, Edoardo in engineering. Dad was always worried about our being able to have professions to fall back on if we weren’t successful in golf.

YOU DID YOUR THESIS ON GOLF, CORRECT?