Lorne Rubenstein

Pure Passion, Pure Seve
October 13, 2005

Seve Ballesteros has got it bad and that ain't good. Or maybe it is.

How can you not root for a once dashing winner of three Open Championships and two Masters who hasn't played competitively for nearly two years but who says, "Winning is very possible. Only winning will satisfy me."

Photo: © Ian Walton/Getty Images Judging from his practice rounds in Madrid, Seve still looks to be having trouble finding fairways.

Ballesteros is like all golfers. He wants to be out on the course looking for the magic. In his case, the 48-year-old Spaniard who will tee it up this week in the Madrid Open had rather a lot of magic.

I'm not only talking about on the course. Everybody knows about his dramatic shots from parking lots, his creative—to put it mildly—short game, his ability to conjure shots that most golfers wouldn't think of playing.

I'll mention just one that I saw. This was in a long-ago tournament in Florida. I believe it was the Honda Classic but hey, I'm older than Ballesteros and I'm not about to trust to memory and say for sure it was.

But I do see Ballesteros clearly. He's standing in a long waste bunker on the right side of a fairway, nearly up against the front lip, which is a good two feet high.

Ballesteros has about 240 yards to the green, with a lake all up the right side. I figure he's going to hit about a seven-iron, max, to get the ball back in the fairway.

He stomps around, gestures to his caddie, glares at the green, at the water, at his ball, at the lip. He grabs a four-wood and settles into a stance.

Then he takes a rip at the ball and catches it dead solid perfect, dead solid pure.

It clears the lip no problem and flies all the way to the green. Seve has run out of the bunker as soon as the ball is in the air. Ball in air, Seve in his glory. He's wearing an ear-to-ear smile, talking rapidly to his caddie, enjoying the moment.

Great stuff. Seve stuff.

Speaking of Seve stuff, I can also see so clearly his reaction on the last green during the 1984 Open Championship at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. He was in a tussle with Tom Watson for the Claret Jug. I was keeping tabs on both while following Watson, in the group behind Ballesteros. Watson was on the 17th green and heading for a bogey after finding the road with his second shot. Ballesteros was up ahead on the 18th green.

Seve rolled in his birdie putt from about 20 feet and them fist-pumped, once, twice, three times as I recall. His smile was pure joy. He was pure joy. What a moment. What a memory. Pure Seve. Pure passion.

Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images The pure joy on Seve's face is a lasting memory from St. Andrews in 1984.

Maybe we'll see a bit of that this week in Madrid. Or next year when he is intimating he might play a full schedule, including the Masters and the Open Championship, for which he's exempt.

Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images Seve tends to play shots from places most in the field never see.

Or maybe we'll see none of that this week or next year. We know nothing. But we fear everything.

Shots so wild that there's no chance of recovery. Greens missed by miles with wedges. Chip shots chunked. Short putts yipped. Anything might happen, which is why it's easy to get jacked up about Seve's return to competition.

It's been too long.

But I remember other things about Ballesteros.

I remember the first time I ever came across the guy. This was at the 1980 Players Championship in Sawgrass; this I'm sure of because I've checked my notes. Seve—I can't help but call him by his first name; that's how we know him, right?—was on the practice green early one evening. A kid about 10 years old lingered by the side, hoping for an autograph. He caught Seve's eye.

"Steve," he said, "Steve. Can I have your autograph?"

The kid obviously thought there was a misspelling on Seve's golf bag. What did he know from "Seve?" The golfer's name had to be Steve.

Photo: © Stephen Munday/Getty Images Seve tries a left handed shot during the 1994 World Match Play against Ernie Els.

Seve looked at the boy and said, sternly, in what was then his limited English, "No Steve, Seve."

The kid was mortified, if somebody that age can be mortified. But Seve broke into a wide smile, walked right over to the kid, patted him on the head, and said, "It's okay. Don't worry. I sign autograph. Thank your for asking."

The formerly mortified youngster broke into his own wide smile. He's in his 30s now. Something tells me he'll be following Seve's fortunes, or misfortunes, this week.

Who wouldn't?

Maybe it's that we can't turn away from looking at a potential disaster. That's probably one of the deeply-felt reasons a lot of people will follow Michelle Wie this week during her first tournament as a pro, at the Samsung World Championship. Are some people hoping she'll fall apart, this already-wealthy 16-year-old?

Photo: © Andrew Redington/Getty Images Seve with one of his three children at the Open Championship at Lytham and St. Annes in 2001.

I like to think people will watch Wie for reasons not so base, that they're interested in her because of her talents, her potential, and I don't mean a potential for disaster.

But maybe they go hand in hand. We like drama and charisma and grace, for sure. Wie can provide drama and she's charismatic and her swing is graceful. So was Seve's.

Once it was anyway. The guy won some 80 tournaments around the world. His swing fell apart but for years it was all elegance mixed with swagger.

He was all feel, and me made us feel. Seve wrote in his interesting book Natural Golf, which he did with John Andrisani, that golf was a right-handed game for right-handers. I've never heard a right-hander say such a thing, although consummate ball-striker Nick Price did say at one stage of his own impressive career that he'd overemphasized the left side in his swing.

Photo: © Stephen Munday/Getty Images Seve even tried working with mystery man Mac O'Grady for a while in the 1990s.

Seve also said that a golfer should never hit a shot from a ball position with which he or she is uncomfortable. Forget about a standard ball position. If you feel better playing a driver off your back foot, do it. Feeling is all. Sensation and emotion matter.

Being into it matters. Really into it. Engaged.

Seve had what the Spaniards manos de plata, hands of silver, when it came to his short game. He played by feel and then he lost his feel and his swing and he sought help here and there and everywhere.

David Leadbetter told him to play as if he were trying to his knockdown shots. That would make him drive his legs forward and keep his clubface on the ball longer. Leadbetter said Seve played well like this for a while but told him the method was too mechanical for him.

What's a teacher to do? Seve is Seve.

I last saw him early in the week of this year's Bay Hill Invitational in Orlando. He intended to play, but his back was killing him.

I see Seve, bent over and looking older than his years, traipsing between trailers with physiotherapy folks and trainers. He's hopeful, but he's hurting. He looks beaten. He withdraws. There's sadness, when one would have preferred Seve. But they went together. They've gone together so long.

Photo: © Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images If you are going to get a tattoo of a five-time major winner—and you can—might as well get one of yourself.

His lost game. His long marriage to the former Carmen Botin ending in divorce.

Years ago Peter Kostis said this: "Seve will come back—if Seve wants to come back."

He wants to come back. He says his back is better, that he feels fit, that he's ready to play. He says that only winning will satisfy him.

Where is the golfer who doesn't dream?

This week Wie dreams of winning on the LPGA and PGA Tours, of playing in the Masters. Seve dreams of winning again, anywhere. We feel anything is possible for Wie. We're more likely to believe that nothing is possible for Seve.

I hope we're right when it comes to Wie. I hope we're wrong when it comes to Seve.

Seve Ballesteros at the Majors

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