Ruud Gullit will not be pressed on whose result he looks for first among his starry list of old clubs. According to the former AC Milan, Feyenoord and Chelsea player, he holds them all in equal affection.
He is sure, though, about which were the most challenging. “A set of Jack Nicklaus MacGregor Persimmons. Most difficult ever,” he says.
Gullit had never played golf before arriving in Milan, when he joined a side that would become one of the greatest in the history of European football.
Home stars like Daniele Massaro and Roberto Donadoni were avid golfers, and he and his Dutch compatriot Marco van Basten started playing to help them fit in.
“They gave me a bag of golf clubs,” Gullit told The National, before pointing out his first set were tricky to handle. “So therefore, I didn't do anything much in the beginning.
“Then all of a sudden, I went on a holiday which was on a golf course. I went to visit it, then I had a lesson there, and then you are hooked.”
Over three decades later, Gullit remains besotted by the sport, to the point that he is now the ambassador for his former club’s new range of golf clothing – the AC Milan Collection.
He played in the Pro-Am ahead of the DP World Tour Championship last week, winning the nearest the pin prize.
He mused on who he would like to play with in a dream four-ball. Two were perfectly conventional selections – Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods – with the third rather more niche. “Freddie Couples,” he said. “It's the smoothness of his swing. I would like to see it from up close.”
And he eulogised about the greatness of Rory McIlroy. “Funny thing is I met Rory when he was young at the Dunhill Links Championship,” Gullit said.
“We used to watch Champions League together on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then he started to play so well then he was not in the same hotel anymore.
“He was in the big hotel. We were at the St Andrew’s Bay first, then he went to St Andrew’s Hotel. I told him he had had a promotion.
“It is very nice if you see somebody young all of a sudden become so influential in golf. The good thing about him is that he's a good example for golfers.
“I think the youth look up to him and that's good. It's nice to see somebody you saw slowly, slowly going in a position that you had yourself.”
Gullit can empathise with the burdens of being a global star like McIlroy. At the turn of the 1990s, he was one of the most recognisable sportsmen in the world.
When he won the Ballon d’Or in 1987, he dedicated it to Nelson Mandela, while the future South Africa president was still a prisoner at Robben Island.
“The most difficult part for him is that people will try to use him too much,” Gullit said of the pressures weighing on McIlroy.
“You have to learn to say no. Everybody wants something of you. But you can't give everybody something. You need to protect yourself.
“They then find you arrogant or whatever, but that's not your problem. You have to protect yourself. You have to protect your environment, your family and everything.
“You have to learn to say no, and in the beginning, that's hard because you want to be loved by everybody. That's the hardest bit when you are on the top of the mountain.”
Gullit reached the top of football’s mountain alongside a childhood mate in the 1990s. His father and Frank Rijkaard’s arrived in the Netherlands together from Suriname.
“The first 12 years I didn't know who Frank was,” Gullit said of a player who was to become his teammate at club and international level. “We met each other when we were waiting for the tram to go to school.
“In the neighbourhood where we lived, I said to Frank, ‘Come to my club'. It was a good club; a lot of good amateurs came from there, good scouts and everything. So we joined, then he joined as well.”
Their careers diverged as soon as they started out in pro football in the Netherlands, but they were reunited with dramatic effect.
Alongside Marco Van Basten, they were known as the “Three Tulips” who were central to Milan becoming an all-conquering force when Seria A was the leading league in the world.
“Marco and I were the first ones to go to Milan,” Gullit said. “Frank went [to Sporting Lisbon] for a year, and we begged [coach, Arrigo] Sacchi to take Frank as well.
“We begged him and begged him. We talked to him all the time, and eventually they did [sign Rijkaard]. That he was the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle, the last piece that we needed.”
After eight years in Italy, Gullit said he “wanted to have my life back a little bit” so moved to London and joined Chelsea.
“In my lifetime, I always chose the underdog, who didn’t win a lot for a long time,” he said.
Gullit was transformative at all of his clubs. Feyenoord might be one of the Netherlands’ giants, but they had not won an Eredivisie title in 10 years before he arrived to break the drought.
When he later switched to PSV Eindhoven, they won the title in his first season having been eight years without the crown.
And Milan won the title four times in the seven seasons he was there having had eight years without the title. Plus there were the two European Cup wins.
“When you bring success, all of a sudden things change,” Gullit said. “People appreciate what you've done. I think it's all better than to go to a club that has already won for a long time, because then it's just normal for them.
“You want to put an imprint there that leaves people saying, ‘Hey, that was great’. You do that on purpose.”
