Seve Ballesteros: An appreciation

When Nick Price saw Seve Ballesteros hitting balls on the practice tee at the 1978 Madrid Open, he knew he had a lot of work to do.

“I was in my rookie year on the European Tour and when I walked on the practice tee I just watched Seve hit balls for probably 20 minutes,” said Price, the three-time major champion from Zimbabwe. “I had a friend caddying for me and I said to him I am light years behind this guy.”

That was not all. Ballesteros’ style, his swagger, his good looks, his explosive passion for the game were the things of envy, even for the best of players.

“Seve had this incredible attraction,” Price said. “People loved to watch him. Hell, the players loved to watch him . . . We all wished we could be like him.”

Ballesteros, 54, died yesterday at his home in Pedrena, Spain from complications of brain cancer. His passing left a hole in the golf universe.

“Even life with a sick Seve was so much better than a life without Seve,” said Tom Lehman, who went head-to-head against Ballesteros in the Ryder Cup. “Now he’s gone, it’s the end of an era. The finality of it is just so sad.”

The Seve era was relatively brief in golfing terms. It began with his first appearance on the world stage at the British Open in 1976 when he finished second at age 19. In 1979 he won the first of his three British Open titles, adding the others in 1984 and 1988. He won the Masters in 1980 and 1983. He enjoyed continued Ryder Cup success into the early 90s, but a bad back greatly diminished his talents. His career effectively over as a player, he captained the European team to victory in the 1997 Ryder Cup at Valderrama in Spain, for him a monumental achievement.

Ballesteros’ passion for the Ryder Cup, and his success in it, drove that competition between the U.S. and Europe to heights it could not have imagined before him. And his charisma was the underpinning of today’s European Tour.

“His impact on golf to me was more what he did for the European Tour and the Ryder Cup,” said Curtis Strange, a two-time U.S. Open champion. “Those both go hand in hand. It’s not far-fetched at all to say that he was the Arnold Palmer of his day on the European Tour, without a doubt. He did so much.”

Ballesteros did not so much swing a club as wield it. His long, full swing was immensely powerful, though not immensely accurate. “He could flat out wail on the ball,” Price said. “It’s just he didn’t always know where it was going.”

Because of that, Ballesteros developed the most magical short game of all time. If he could find a ball, he could hit it. He played the most delicate of shots with great ferocity.

“Golfers of accomplishment have 100 ways to shoot 65,” Price said. “Seve had 10,000 ways. He could hit a chip shot five different ways and you were looking for just one. The creativity in his game was unparalleled. His ability to rescue himself from any situation was remarkable, even to players like me.”

No more was his creativity, and his passion, on display than in the 1995 Ryder Cup at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y. By then Ballesteros’ game was gone. In his previous seven Ryder Cup appearances Ballesteros had been Europe’s driving force (he won 221 / 2 points in 37 matches) and his partnership with Jose Maria Olazabal was the best in the history of the competition. But playing in his eighth Ryder Cup at Oak Hill, his game was a shambles.

Captain Bernard Gallacher sent Ballesteros out first in the singles on Sunday where he would face Tom Lehman. It was a strategy more to save Ballesteros from the embarrassment of losing a match deeper into the singles field that might be the deciding one.

Over the front nine Ballesteros hit horrendous tee shots, only to save himself time after time with his short game. Though Lehman would go on to beat him 4 and 3, Ballesteros’ passionate struggle so inspired his teammates that they came from behind to win.

“That was the most incredible nine holes of golf I’ve ever seen,” Lehman said. “You know, Seve was only two years older than me, a complete peer. But I grew up wanting to play golf like Seve Ballesteros. Rarely would anyone put someone of the same age on a pedestal. I put Seve on a pedestal.”