RIP Seve Ballesteros

Keep Pounding, Seve ... and keep up those astounding shots.

The background stories of Seve in a golf book of mine were mind-spinning. How he was given the head of an old 3-iron and would find wood sticks, jam them in the hosel and soak until he had a "club." Wash, rinse and repeat when the stick broke. And he didn't have golf balls, instead opting for the roundest stones he could find.

That was where the creativity came from. That's also why he was the wrong guy to play in a five-club or one-club format.

RIP, good sir and don't forget to keep making birdies from the parking lot at your next destination.

 

He used to make the old World Series of Golf tournaments in Akron must-see television. My father, who is not one for memorabilia, still has an old WSOG program Seve signed years ago. While I would always root for Jack or, later, Tom Watson my pops was always a Seve guy. RIP to one of the best to ever play the game.

 

RIP Seve. A class act all the way.

 

Great quote from Nick Price: "I’ve always said most of us could shoot 65 in about 30 or 40 ways. He could do it about 10,000 different ways."

 

Saying "well-done" and "Culpepper" in the same sentence is repetitive. [/fangirl]

Very well-written piece, though.

 

What a shame. He should have been tearing up the Senior Tour right now. Way, way too young. RIP.

 

Yeah, five majors. But I think his greatest legacy was personally taking the Ryder Cup from being an after-thought to the biggest single event in golf right now (in my opinion). When they expanded it from Great Britain/Ireland in 1979 to all of continental Europe, he led a series of ass-whippings on the U.S. And, surprise, surprise, American sports fans started to care about it (the same way they started to care about Olympic basketball after the Russians won). One of the most amazing stats in golf is that he was 11-2-2 with Olazabal in Ryder Cup doubles. And it's not like they were playing Robert Gamez and Woody Austin. They were getting the best the U.S. had to offer.

Oh, and there was the birdie from the parking lot in a British Open.