Little Book of Golf Legends

By Neil Tappin

Written by golf journalist Neil Tappin, The Little Book of Golf Legends is part of the fantastic Legends of Sport series featuring Football, Golf, Rugby, Cricket and Grand Prix. Packed with 4-page profiles of 30 of the world's most admired and revered golfers, The Little Book of Golf Legends includes key statistics about each legend, illustrated with some of the best known photographs of them together with a fascinating profile of their career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G2 Rights
• Release date: Aug 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781908461599

Book preview

Severiano Ballesteros

Born: Pedreña, Spain, 9 April 1957

Died: 7 May 2011

Turned professional: 1974

Masters: Winner in 1980, 1983

US Open: 3rd in 1987

British Open: Winner in 1979, 1984, 1988

USPGA: 5th in 1984

Ryder cup record: Member of eight European teams (1979, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995) Played 37, Won 20, Lost 12, Halved 5. Captain in 1997.

When Severiano Ballesteros was at the peak of his powers, there was no situation too hopeless that he couldn’t muster a miraculous recovery. Whether it was a low punch under a canopy of branches or a raking hook past water or sand, Seve always had the answer.

He had the imagination and instinctive natural skill to recover from just about anywhere, but it was never as if he had a laissez faire attitude towards the game; it was just that he cared deeply about every shot and had a steely determination to match his flair. Quite simply, Seve had the x-factor, an indescribable character trait that made him the most dashing European golfer of them all.

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*Severiano Ballesteros.

His engaging, boyish grin, often to be seen just after he had escaped from a seemingly impossible predicament with an outrageous but brilliantly improvised shot, endeared him to the world. But equally important to a career that changed golf for the better were his will to succeed, his deep love of the game and an enviable technique, developed under less than helpful circumstances.

Seve’s death in May 2011, after a three-year battle with brain cancer, was mourned throughout the world of golf and far, far beyond. He was one of very few athletes whose fame transcended sporting and national barriers. Everyone knew who Seve was, and everyone would have liked to have had him as a friend.

His contribution to the game on the eastern side of the pond was succinctly summarised by Lee Westwood, the world number one when Seve died: Seve made European golf what it is today. And one of the most eloquent, comprehensive and telling tributes came from a country where Seve loved to play golf. Kevin Myers, in the Irish Independent, recalled his winning way with the English language, and added: He spoke many other languages too: the dialects of honour, of dignity, of sportsmanship, of decency, of fair play, of loyalty, of integrity, and in the end, of dauntless, unforgettable, astonishing courage. In doing so, he rewrote entirely the international image of the Spanish people. Quite simply, there has never been a finer ambassador for either his sport or his country.

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*Seve in action at Wentworth in 1985.

Ballesteros was born, and died, in the Cantabrian fishing village of Pedreña in northern Spain. He was the youngest of four brothers, all of whom followed in the footsteps of their uncle, Ramón Sota, and became professional golfers. One of the first Spanish players to make his mark on the world game, Sota won a handful of pro tournaments and tied for sixth place in the 1965 Masters. His achievements revealed a route into lucrative tournament golf that his youngest nephew was desperate to follow.

Seve’s seemingly instinctive ability to manufacture unlikely shots can be traced back to his earliest involvement in the game. He grew up close to the Real Club de Golf de Pedreña and, at the age of seven, possessed one club – a 3-iron given to him by his brother Manuel. With this he would hit shots on the beach – when he really should have been at school – or sneak on to the course at dusk to play a few holes. Without strategic or technical guidance, he developed a unique eye for the game and learned that even a straight-faced 3-iron could be manipulated to cope with any scenario.

Golf quickly became an obsession for Seve, and by the age of twelve he was a scratch player. There was no place in his career plan for school and, by January 1974, he had left to become Spain’s youngest professional golfer. He was just sixteen years old.

By 1976, the fledgling superstar was beginning to make his mark in Europe. He won his first serious event, the Dutch Open, and as leader of the Continental Order of Merit he qualified to the play in the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. But despite having established himself on Tour, he was still relatively unknown and the press struggled to pronounce his name.

At Birkdale, the nineteen-year-old matched Johnny Miller to share the Open lead after three rounds. Through the final afternoon, Seve gradually fell away as Miller accelerated, but he made a late birdie rush to finish second, tied with Jack Nicklaus. The Open of 1976 offered the public a fascinating taster of what was to come, and three years later Seve returned to the Lancashire coast to win his first major.

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*Seve teeing off at the Belfry in the 1985 Ryder Cup.

Heading into the final round at Royal Lytham & St Annes – where uncle Ramón had tied for seventh place sixteen years before – Seve was two shots behind the reigning US Open Champion, Hale Irwin. He piled the pressure on his more experienced opponent by making a birdie two at the opening hole and by the time they reached the third tee, Seve was standing proud at the head of the field with a one-shot lead.

Typically wayward off the tee throughout the round, he constantly offered a chink of light to the chasing pack, before slamming the door with a famously audacious recovery. At the short par-four sixteenth, he pushed his drive into a television compound, only to stage a scarcely credible comeback, pitching on to the green and holing out for a birdie. He took the title by three shots from Nicklaus and Ben Crenshaw and, at twenty-two, was crowned the youngest winner of the Open since Young Tom Morris more than a hundred years before.

When Seve arrived at Augusta for the 1980 Masters, he was a major force within the game, but American audiences were yet to see the best of him. He laid on a stunning short game display and at one stage during the final round led by a staggering ten shots. Even at his best, however, Seve was unpredictable, and his lead was reduced to two as he stuttered through Amen Corner – Augusta’s eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth holes, the undoing of many a Masters hopeful. But he recovered well to win by four strokes and become the first European to don the Masters green jacket.

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*A more recent shot of the legend.

In 1983, Seve was back in Georgia determined to conquer the course again and, in a Monday finish caused by poor weather on the Friday, he duly obliged the expectant galleries. Opening his final round with a birdie, an eagle, a par and another birdie, he saw off the challenges of Crenshaw and Tom Kite by a margin of four strokes.

His most memorable triumph, however, came at St Andrews in the 1984 Open. Seve was up against two of the leading players of the time – Bernhard Langer and Tom Watson – in a captivating three-way battle (Watson was bidding to equal Harry Vardon’s record of six Open victories). Seve showed his class by parring the seventeenth after finding rough to the left of the fairway. Then, thinking that he needed a birdie on the last, he duly delivered. A two-shot victory in spectacular style at the Home of Golf confirmed Seve’s place among the game’s legends.

Seve loved links golf, he loved the Open, and he loved Lytham. In 1988, striving for his third Open title, he walked on to the sixteenth tee no doubt recalling his fairy-tale recovery at that hole in 1979. This time, though, there were to be no such dramas, just perfectly judged and executed golf shots. Seve plonked his drive in prime position on the fairway and followed up with a wondrous 9-iron that left his ball three inches from the hole. The resultant birdie helped him to a final round of 65 and a two-shot win over Nick Price, who must have thought he’d done enough with a 69.

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*The adoring crowd swarm around Seve, as he wins the Open at Royal Lytham, 1979.

Besides his achievements in the Majors – his five wins were complemented by fifteen further top ten finishes – Seve was a frequent tournament winner who entertained whenever and wherever he played. In all, he won professional tournaments ninety-one times, including four on the PGA Tour, forty-five on the European Tour and six on the Japan Golf Tour. The last time he picked up a winner’s cheque was, fittingly, at the Spanish Open of 1995 in Barcelona. At one time – between April 1986 and September 1989 – he could not be dislodged from the top of the world rankings for sixty-one weeks.

Away from the weekly rigours of strokeplay, Seve was also a peerless matchplay competitor. He played in the Ryder Cup eight times, winning twenty matches, and captained the winning Europe team at Valderrama in Spain in 1997. He relished the chance to take on the best players from the States, and his genuine passion for the event was crucial in raising its profile to the captivating international event we know and love today.

His Ryder Cup partnership with fellow Spaniard José María Olazábal remains in the history books as the most successful ever, yielding thirteen wins and two halved games from fourteen outings, and Nicklaus cherishes the memory of the greatest shot I have ever seen, when Seve hit a 3-wood 230 yards from a bunker at the 1983 tournament.

Plagued by persistent back problems throughout his career, Seve’s later attempts to compete (albeit sporadically) proved unsuccessful, and he eventually called it a day in 2007 after failing to make the cut at the Masters. But whenever he did play, vast crowds were afforded brief glimpses of the magic that captivated audiences for over two decades. His unique, fearless eye for plotting a successful route to the hole was one of his most attractive qualities.

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*Seve holds the Open trophy once again after winning at St. Andrews in 1984.

In October 2008, Seve collapsed at Madrid airport and a few days later was diagnosed with a brain tumour. It was the start of a long battle, bravely fought, that included bouts of chemotherapy and surgery. When Olazábal visited him at home in 2009 to present him with the BBC’s Sports Personality lifetime achievement award for the second time, the TV audience saw a vulnerable, humble yet defiant man, and millions wept.

With his passing, golf lost perhaps its best-loved hero.

James Braid

Born: Earlsferry, Fife, Scotland, 6 February 1870

Died: 27 November 1950