As the world of golf celebrates the life of Seve Ballesteros, some of the more experienced players in the field at this week’s Iberdrola Open shared their favourite Seve memories ahead of a memorial service at Pula Golf Club.
Barry Lane:“I have so many great memories of Seve – I was lucky to play with him many times in my career – but the year I beat him in Switzerland is the funniest one I can think of. It was the year of the great ‘over the wall’ shot when he was under the trees and almost against the eight-foot wall that goes around the swimming pool to the right of the 18th fairway at Crans-sur-Sierre. I was a couple of groups behind because I was leading going into the final round. Anyway, I am playing 17 and Seve does his magic, hits it through the trees, over the wall to the edge of the green then chips in for birdie. All of a sudden I just hear this unbelievable roar from the 18th and I see the scoreboard change to see he has tied myself and Miguel’s (Angel Jiménez) score. I was playing with Miguel but managed to make a great putt on 17 for birdie from about 20 feet. So I make par at the last to win by a stroke and we are sitting on the green waiting for the prizegiving to start when Seve leans over and says to me: ‘Barry, you were lucky on 17 no?’ I said to him: ‘what do you mean Seve?’ And he says: ‘you holed a long putt for birdie – lucky no?’ I kind of looked and said: ‘yeah, well what about you at the last?’ He looked me straight in the eye and said: ‘yeah, but that’s no problem for me!” It was classic Seve and just typical of him. He fully expected to get up and down from behind an eight foot wall for birdie – he knew he was going to do it.
“He was just a magician. He did it again at Crans with me one year. He was up against a tree and just had no swing and what looked like no shot but he pulled out the seven iron, somehow manages to get at it and all of a sudden it skips onto the green, takes three hops and spins completely sideways to within a foot of the hole. He was unbelievable in that form but I think people should also remember that he didn’t just do great escapes – he was just an awesome player. I think if you look at that second Masters he won, where he started birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie, you see what a player he was. He took the lead early and from then on he was so controlled on probably the hardest golf course in the world to play that way. If you back off round Augusta you can find plenty of trouble but he knew exactly what he was doing. But then the thing was whenever he was in trouble he could do anything that his imagination allowed to get out of it. We all have imagination and we all know what we’d like to do with the ball but he was the one guy who could execute it almost every time and that’s what made him so special.”
Darren Clarke:“The first time I played with Seve was at the Alfred Dunhill Open in 1993, which was my first win on Tour. We were in Belgium, playing at Zoute. Seve was there, Monty, Langer, Woosie, Faldo – they were all there. I was in the last group on Sunday, playing with Seve. He had such presence and was very intimidating to play with, just like all the great players are.
“I’ll never forget my first Ryder Cup in Valderrama. Seve was Captain obviously and he was just everywhere that week. I was playing a practice round and hit it in the bunker at the back of the ninth green. It was a terrible lie, on a downslope and a really tough shot. Anyway, I am about to hit the shot and who appears but Seve. He watches me catch it a bit thin and the next thing I know he’s in the bunker, grabbing my sand wedge saying ‘give me the club, give me the club!’ All of a sudden he puts a ball in the exact spot, pops it up and nearly holes it. He looked at me and said ‘that’s how to play it’ and all you could say was ‘okay, I’ll do that next time’, but you knew that you couldn’t do what Seve did to get out of a bunker. But that was just the man he was. He wanted to hit every shot for everyone – it meant so much to him.”
Thomas Levet:“My favourite Seve memory came at the Monte Carlo Open in 1991. I was doing well and was drawn with him in the third round so I was very nervous to be playing with him because it was my first year on Tour and he was in his prime, a giant in the game. So we were playing and he was playing his usual way, all over the place off the tee and then chipping and putting from everywhere to keep the score going. We came to the 11th hole and he played two of the greatest shots I have ever seen.
“He hooked his three wood off the tee and we find the ball and it is basically unplayable. Well, unplayable to every other golfer in the world apart from Seve. He has low branches all around the ball and can hardly see it. All of a sudden he takes a stance where his feet are nearly two metres apart and grips the club halfway down the shaft. I’m thinking ‘what is he doing?’ He takes about 50 practice swings, then comes away from the shot and goes to check where the green is and what his yardage is. He comes back and does the same practice routine again. By now, we are all watching thinking that he is a bit crazy. Then, it happens. He takes the stance and grips the metal of the shaft and hits this shot that seemed to go up and down to avoid all the tree branches and as soon as it came out of the trees the ball went like a bullet towards the green. Unbelievable.
“So, we get to the green and he is to the right. This time the ball is resting against a tree. I mean, there is no shot. The pin is close to him but he has to come over a mound and then stop it immediately. Now I am thinking, ‘okay, he has nowhere to go’ but as we all know now he managed to escape. He had his hip against the tree and his hands were behind him but he did it, he popped that ball up in the air and landed it to within six inches of the pin. He made a par on a hole where any other player would have made seven from those positions. He was just unbelievable and every time you played with him you saw something like that. Amazing.”
Paul Lawrie:“Seve was my golfing idol when I was growing up. The first time I ever played with him was the Spanish Open in 1992. It was my fourth event as a Tour pro. I never slept the night before because he was the guy who was exciting. He was winning tournaments but not from the fairway. He was swash-buckling and he was just so exciting to watch. I remember him walking up to the tee at that Spanish Open and I was thinking to myself ‘he’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming’!
“Seve just had that charisma and here was me about 22 years of age, a young lad and I had just played four or five Tour events, and he was just great to play with. I actually shot 68 and he shot 70. He was just my idol. He was an inspiration, no question. Too many people forget that the tournaments he won that he won over an 18-year period. He had finished played by around about 40, so he won a lot of tournaments in a short space of time. He’s probably our best ever player. He was just fantastic. He was hard to play with because he was my idol but he didn’t make it difficult for me. We will all miss him.”
Paul McGinley:“My favourite Seve memory was from the first year of the Royal Trophy when I played under him as Captain. He had picked Faldo and Woosie as his wild cards and they were both at the end of their careers in terms of competing at the top level. Seve was in the same position as Captain of our team and I remember that week in Bangkok of just sitting listening to the three of them talking about their careers and their great battles against one another. We had a dinner every night and we’d sit and have a glass of wine and just watch them discussing their careers and how they viewed real pressure situations differently and how they handled certain things. It was really fascinating because their guards were down if you like, in the sense that they weren’t competing against each other anymore so they could let each other in a bit more than they could have when they were in their prime.
“There was huge respect there but you could tell that they also had a real fondness for each other. It was funny because we had some pretty big talkers in that team including myself, Thomas Björn and David Howell but not one of us said a word during those dinners. We just sat there and watched and listened to these legends of the game. They were really funny together and you could tell they really enjoyed that time together and, of course, Seve was always involved. I got to know him quite well over the last few years through the Royal Trophy and spoke to him on the phone quite a lot when he wasn’t well. The one thing that struck me more than anything of late was how humble he was and how thankful he was to have been able to achieve what he did in his life and career. Not once did he feel sorry for himself that this illness had struck him down – he was humble for what he had been gifted in life and that’s the way I will remember him.”
Per-Ulrik Johansson:“I have a few Seve memories, the first one is from my childhood when I went to watch him play at in Sweden. I was following him – I think I was 13 years old – and he hit it in a bunker on one of the holes. His ball was on the side lip almost and he just had no shot. He looks and looks at it and then pulls out his Ping Answer putter, turns it 90 degrees and smashed the sand in front of the ball and knocked it on the green. I’ll never forget that shot. Well, it wasn’t even a shot, it was just a moment when you realise that you are watching a real genius.
“Then I played with him in 1991 in Monte Carlo and even though I had already won in Belgium that year, my first year on Tour, he was still very intimidating to play with, especially for a younger player like me. So I am standing on the first tee about to tee off and I can see his legs in my vision as I am about to tee off. All of a sudden I just get this thought in my mind that Seve is watching me and I start to think how I should swing the club in order to make Seve think I had a good swing. It was nothing to do with getting a solid first tee shot away, I was totally thinking about how I could make Seve think I had a good swing because I thought I had a rubbish swing and didn’t want him to think that! Unbelievable, but that’s the effect he had on people.”
