Links Magazine | The Best Of Golf | Seve and Everything After

Log on to the official website of Severiano Ballesteros and you’ll find a revealing passage about his 1980 Masters victory. It is prefaced with a bit of well-deserved preening: Seve was 10 shots clear of the field with nine holes to play, he clocked up an eagle and 23 birdies during the four rounds and (his birdie total matching his age) he became, at 23, the first European and the youngest player ever to wear the green jacket. It was, the authorized chronicle tells us, an incredible success; in Seve’s Spanish hometown, the churchbells “rang out in joy.”

Then, a sour note. His attempt to mount a Grand Slam “petered out” two months later when he was disqualified from the U.S. Open for missing his tee time.

“This,” we are told, “was his first great disappointment.”

It is an odd admission, and a telling one. Within it one can glimpse a dire prophecy beginning to come true. The cursed nature of his career and life apparently begins then and there, in the first fading of Masters glory. Before Ballesteros won his second green jacket in 1983, the clash of light and dark in his personality—the same mix of characteristics that, in David Feherty’s words, make Seve the sunniest athlete imaginable at one moment and “Thor the Thunder God” the next—had flashed into view. Amid a string of tour victories and worldwide acclaim, he resigned from the European Tour in a row over appearance money and was spectacularly dropped from the Ryder Cup team, despite being Europe’s best player.

Over the years, Ballesteros has been at the heart of some of the most infamous grudge matches in the game’s history. He has maintained long-running feuds with caddies, fellow players, ex-managers, the Spanish government (for failing to promote golf) and former PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman (for taking away his tour card). He threatened to lose interest in the Ryder Cup in order to get the event played in Spain and accused the owner of the eventual host course of bribery. Most recently, he’s crossed swords with the European Tour committee by refusing to accept a slow-play penalty.

“It was very sad because we didn’t want to fine the guy,” says former Ryder Cup captain and committee chairman Mark James.

“We said, ‘We are your friends.’ But he doesn’t seem to know who his friends are anymore. There doesn’t seem to be anyone who can go up to him and say, ‘Seve, you’re in the wrong here. Just say you’re sorry and let it go. You’re bang out of order.’”

The most insightful comment I ever came across while researching a biography of Ballesteros was from a source who told an American magazine writer, “All of his professional life, [Seve] has been inspired to great deeds by his craving to stick it to someone. Go through his record: Here’s when he stuck it to the European Tour because they wouldn’t permit him to ask for appearance money. Here’s when he stuck it to the American pros for calling him lucky. Here’s when he stuck it to Deane Beman for not changing the qualification rules.”

Seve and Everything After

Log on to the official website of Severiano Ballesteros and youll find a revealing passage about his 1980 Masters victory

Log on to the official website of Severiano Ballesteros and youll find a revealing passage about his 1980 Masters victory