Dermot Gilleece recounts the extraordinary life and achievements of F1 team owner and huge golf enthusiast, Eddie Jordan
My first sight of Eddie Jordan hitting a golf-ball was on the practice ground at Valderrama. This was more than 30 years ago, when he had a home on the Costa del Sol. With a borrowed driver, he began casually to hit shots, good shots, despite the handicap of wearing street shoes.
The exercise struck me as so typical of the Dubliner I had come to know and admire. Years later, in an attempt at explaining his success in motor-racing, he said mischievously: “I was consistent in that I robbed everybody, so I didn’t tend to make enemies. This life we live is just one short little trip. And we both know that it flies by. So it’s hugely important how you treat people. We all have enemies but I managed to hold onto my big sponsors. That was the key.”
When he died aged 76 on March 20th, his great golfing friend, Paul McGinley, spoke for most of us when he observed on line: “Heartbreaking to lose one of my very best friends to the curse that cancer is. Heaven will be some craic, now you’ve arrived.”
Reflecting on a happier time when Jordan had caddied for him in the 2005 BMW International Open, McGinley said: “Eddie was great all that week and I couldn’t have asked for a better caddie. In fact I could see why he had been so successful as a Formula One team boss. As a long-time friend, I thought I knew him very well but I saw another side to him in Munich, which thrilled me so much. I’m not going to say what it was. It will remain a secret.”
On getting to know Eddie Jordan, the feeling grew that any challenge, whatever the circumstances, was to be relished. I especially remember a chat I had with him in 2009, four years after he had sold his Formula-One team for in January 2005 for a reported figure of €80 million. He was returning to the motoring limelight in Australia, as a member of BBC Television’s presentation team for the Grand Prix season, offering his “expert insight and passionate perspective.”
When he died aged 76 on March 20th, his great golfing friend, Paul McGinley, spoke for most of us when he observed on line: “Heartbreaking to lose one of my very best friends to the curse that cancer is. Heaven will be some craic, now you’ve arrived.”
Even in quieter times, there was never the danger of Jordan becoming anonymous, given his connections in golf. This was the man who thought nothing of bribing Nick Faldo so as to acquire car-testing time at Silverstone. And who invited Tiger Woods to a stay at his Wentworth home, only to impose a charge of £30,000 which he then gave to charity.
He considered it something of a mixed blessing to have gained international celebrity through motor-racing. “While it allows me to meet some of golf’s greatest players,” he acknowledged, “there’s always the problem that while I want to talk golf, all they’ve wanted to talk to me about has been grand prix cars.”
Jordan’s deal with Faldo came early in 1996 when Jordan’s chief designer at the time, Gary Anderson, was anxious to do some urgent, pre-season testing. A phone-call to Brian Pallott, the track manager at Silverstone, however, did not deliver the expected response. “Can’t be done,” the man with a long-time business attachment to Silverstone was informed. “The track is taken up. A private day.” Intrigued by this, Jordan wanted to know who had booked it, but Pallott wasn’t saying.
In typically persuasive fashion, the motoring chief persisted until he was eventually informed that Faldo had taken over the track to put a newly-purchased Porsche 959 through its paces. This, incidentally, was the same, ultra-exclusive car which Faldo’s American girlfriend at the time, Brenna Cepelak, severely thumped with a nine iron after the pair split up in October 1998. As she intended, the damage was extensive and quite costly to repair.
Meanwhile, a compromise was reached eventually. If Faldo would allow the grand prix car on the track, his reward would be a drive in it. And that’s what happened. “We had to take the seat out to allow for Faldo’s size (6ft 3inst). The pay-off for me was an invitation to play a round with Nick at Sunningdale a short while afterwards.”
In the week prior to the 2006 Ryder Cup, Jordan had Woods and his caddie, Steve Williams, as guests at his Wentworth home, which was located on a corner where the end of the garden looked out on the fourth, fifth and sixth holes of the famous West Course.
Wentworth Golf Course where Eddie Joran had a home. He invited Tiger Woods to stay there only to impose a charge of £30,000 which he then gave to charity
“Steve was a massive fan of Jordan Grand Prix and he told Tiger about us,” said Eddie. “The upshot was that I offered to put them up during the World Matchplay. The two of them, along with a chef and other members of Tiger’s team, stayed in the house while myself and Marie (Eddie’s wife) moved into the annexe.
“In the evenings, Tiger used to go out my back garden and practise on hole five where he would acquire quite an audience by the time he reached the green. Then he’d slip away into the trees, with people probably thinking he was going to the loo. Instead, he was heading for the back entrance to my house.
“We thought he would leave when he was beaten by Shaun Micheel in the first round on the Thursday, but he stayed in the house for a full week. Then came the really interesting bit. Though Tiger’s management company, IMG, had offered to pay us £15,000 for the week, I later told them the price was double that. Then I requested that two cheques be written for £15,000 each, one made out to the Tiger Woods Foundation and the other to my charity CLIC (Cancel Leukaemia in Children). When I told Tiger what I had done, he thought it was classic. A great move. He loved it. Then I explained that this was normal practice in motor racing.”
There was always golf. He wanted to know if I still remembered Old Sotogrande all those years ago (1994), when himself, Marie, JP Fitzgerald (before he became Rory McIlroy’s caddie) and myself played the final hole in total darkness, having started the round in the late afternoon. It was an occasion we would remind each other of from time to time, as if to cement the sort of relationship Jordan liked to maintain with long-standing contacts in the media.
I can’t remember who won that particular battle. All I can recall is that Eddie was my partner and with the 18th green engulfed in darkness, he insisted that the winner would be determined by sound. In other words the rattle of a putt against the pin would be decisive. And while I can recall such a sound, I genuinely can’t remember who made it.
As a prelude to the 1998 Grand Prix season, a quintessentially British institution was filled with the plaintive note of the uileann pipes. It was the owner’s way of putting his personal stamp on the launch of the Benson and Hedges Jordan Mugen-Honda 198, at London’s Royal AlbertHall.
Overall, it made quite a change from the modest gatherings I remembered for earlier launches at Jordan’s Silverstone factory. A 20-minute spectacular display of acrobatics from the French Cirque de Soleil, ended with the new, yellow-liveried car being lowered on a platform from 50 feet above 600 assembled media.
Bearing a hornet on its nose _ “ready to sting the big boys!” _ the car represented a triumph for the engineering skills of Jordan designer Gary Anderson, who was forced at short notice to adapt to the most radical technical rule changes for 15 years.
The scale of this London showpiece emphasised the remarkable resilience of Jordan. Since breaking into the ridiculously-expensive world of grand prix racing, he would solemnly proclaim each new season as “a make or break year in which I’ve got to deliver.” Seven years on, he was still without a grand prix victory. But 1998 was to change all that, thanks to the coup of landing the 1996 world champion, Damon Hill, along with a works engine deal with Mugen-Honda.
There was no hiding Jordan’s delight at the presence of Hill on the launch platform close-by Hirotoshi Honda, whose father founded the Japanese giant. In the event, Hill would form a partnership with 22-year-old Ralf Schumacher, Michael’s younger brother.
So as to finance a driver with 21 grand prix victories, Jordan employed all his formidable trading skills. He created a vacancy for Hill by collecting $3 million in compensation from Benetton for Giancarlo Fisichella. And he had previously got $4 million from Ferrari for Eddie Irvine along with undisclosed amounts for the contacts of Michael Schumacher and Jean Alesi. So, expensive though it undoubtedly was, it didn’t leave Jordan strapped for cash. “Selling drivers has kept us in business,” he explained.
My return to London for the 1999 launch was especially memorable. This time, the host venue was the London Palladium where, for the first time in their history, Jordan Grand Prix would have two drivers with Grand Prix victories to their credit, now that Heinz-Harald Frentzen had joined Damon Hill. Jordan was now one of the so-called top four teams, an elevated status achieved for the first time in the 1998 constructors’ championship.
Which lent a piquant touch to the choice of a Pakistani illusionist as the feature entertainer. “Now that we have tasted victory, I feel psychologically stronger.” said the owner.
His fortunes were changed utterly by events in Round 13 of the 1998 schedule at Spa-Francorchamps. On August 30th, having had his highest finish of fourth in the two previous races, Hill swept to victory in the Belgian Grand Prix. And, oh happy day!, Ralf Schumacher followed him home for a Jordan 1,2.
Lingering doubts were instantly removed about the value of a reported £20 million in sponsorship which Benson and Hedges was now investing in the team for a fourth successive season. And if he had a mind to, Jordan could afford to do some determined arm-twisting of the motoring media, with the £40 million he was reported to have received from equity investor, Warburg Pincus.
Further victories, in France and Italy, followed in 1999 and a fourth and final one in Brazil in 2003. Since breaking into the ridiculously-expensive world of grand prix racing in 1991, the proud Dubliner had delivered handsomely for his many admirers. Ar dheis De go raibh a anam.
