The newest addition to Europe's Ryder Cup team, Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts, admits that he has had to overcome his party animal instincts to turn his career around.
Olazabal and Colsaerts pose with the Ryder Cup.
On Monday the 29-year-old was named as one of two wild cards - Ian Poulter being the other - in Jose Maria Olazabal's side for Chicago next month.
The selection gave him ample opportunity to reflect on an almost meteoric rise, given that three years ago Colsaerts was begging for invites to events on the French Mini-tour since he was without a card on either the
European Tour or the second tier Challenge circuit.
"I knew I was going to be a bit of a clown at one stage of my life, but I've always said I had my mid-life crisis at 25," he said on Monday.
"It's a pretty good thing - I got it out of the way. I was told a million times (to grow up and shake off his wild side), but it has to come from you."
Colsaerts pointed to some time at a sports academy in Brisbane as the point where his career turned around.
"It was a great hideaway place and I found myself. It's a bit of a fairy story, I know, but I'm just living proof that anybody can do it.
"If you want something badly it's only a matter of time if you put the work in and you still have the passion.
"I never lost faith of one day maybe being in the position I'm in today."
A Volvo World Match Play winner in May, Colsaerts would have qualified automatically for a place in Olazabal's squad at the expense of Martin Kaymer if he had shot 66 in the last round of the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.
Instead a 72 left him in 19th spot and unsure of his standing in Olazabal's mind, until the Spaniard called him later that night to confirm he had been selected.
"I would not have understood if I hadn't been chosen, but as much as I thought I was going to be chosen you can't help but think that maybe he wants other things," Colsaerts reflected.
As the first Belgian to make the match, his selection felt all the sweeter.
"I hope it's going to put golf in a better position in people's minds, people's heads," he said.
"It's not a very popular sport back home. I've always felt like it was going to be my task to make it a bit more popular and put it a little more on the map.
"I would like to think that some of the young guys are going to go play tournaments abroad and feel like they are part of a bit of the golfing culture, just because I've finally but the Belgian flag on the map."
golf365.com