Seve Ballesteros - The Peoples Champion

Although the most distinguishing thing about his first appearance in the Open Championship had been his ineptitude (he'd horribly missed the cut at Carnoustie in 1975, shooting 79-80), Seve Ballesteros was back for the championship at Royal Birkdale in 1976 because he had finished top of the 1975 Continental Order of Merit. Nothing was going to shock him as much the second time around and he knew that he should be able to play links golf.

“I knew how to hit the ball low and how to hit bump-and-run shots,” he said, “but they were really only practice shots for me. I had hardly played on courses where you needed to use them.” Well, now he was going to play one again. The fact that earlier in the season he had had three top-10 finishes on the continent helped his confidence, too.

His preparation for the Open was not orthodox. The week beforehand, he was bailing hay with his father on the farm in Pedrena, a job that had to be done by hand since they didn't have the necessary machinery. When he got to Southport, his first task was to try to steer the non-exempt Manuel through qualifying at the Hillside, right next-door to Birkdale, by being his caddie. In this he failed, and Manuel did not return the favour. Seve had been hoping that his bagman for the Open would be Dave Musgrove, who had caddied him to eighth place in the French Open at Le Touquet, also a links course, in early May. Musgrove would be walking with Seve down the final fairway at Lytham in three years' time but on this occasion he was committed to Roberto de Vicenzo. However, he had a solution. He had a chum called Dick Draper, a local policeman. He'd never caddied before but he was on holiday for the week and he was up for it, so why not?

The weather that week was the sort of stuff which must have had the Southport Tourist Board thinking that all its summers had come at once. In fact, it was so hot that it felt like they had. And it was so dry that the course caught fire. In these torrid conditions, Seve realised that he would have to hit every approach so that it would land about 20 yards short of the green and then run on. In the first round, he applied this strategy so successfully that, with a three-under-par 69, he was tied for the lead. In the clubhouse, Manuel graciously accepted congratulations from players who were surprised to see the name Ballesteros on the scoreboards since they thought he'd not made it through qualifying. He had to explain the case of mistaken identity before accompanying Seve to the press centre to act as his translator.

“All good fun,” the press thought, as we sat in the enervating heat of the tent in which the interviews were conducted, “but they won't be back in here again this week.” One delightfully idiosyncratic aspect of the translation rigmarole was that someone would ask a question in English, Manuel would explain at length to Seve in Spanish, who would then reply to Manuel at equal length, also in Spanish. Manuel's explanation to the press in English would then be along the lines of: “He feels confident.”

Press scepticism that the above entertainment would be a one-off was incorrect. After another 69 from Seve on the Thursday (the Open was then held from Wednesday to Saturday; it didn't switch to a Sunday finish until 1980), the Brothers Ballesteros were in the tent again. Seve was leading the Open by two shots from the golden wonder boy of American golf, Johnny Miller. That flailing swing and wondrous putting touch were proving an irresistible combination.

The brothers were staying in a small private house in Southport. They went out for dinner, later walking around the streets and enjoying the glorious July evenings. They had a disco-pub they were particularly fond of, although Seve was more interested in the music than the drink. This first sensation of fame was a welcome one. Seve felt warm and wanted. Photographers snapped him constantly and he was on both the front and back pages of the national press. He was the story of the week – an unknown, good-looking, non-English speaking Spanish teenager leading the biggest golf tournament in the world.

The fuss didn't abate after the third round. Seve recovered from a rocky opening – he bogeyed the first three holes – to shoot a 73. Miller shot the same. Seve still led by two shots, but now there was only one more round in which he could fall over. And after this third day, after what he had seen, Seve could think of no reason why Miller should get the better of him. Manuel, on the other hand, could hardly believe what was happening.

“He was obviously thinking, ‘My God, my brother could win the Open,'” said Seve. Not only was Manuel incredulous, Seve felt, “he was almost embarrassed, because he knew how important the Open was. I hardly understood that, partly because I hardly spoke English.”

There was a media maelstrom surrounding Seve, the pleasant aspects of which he was relishing, but he didn't comprehend that much of what was going on was speculation about how he was on the verge of becoming the youngest Open champion of the 20th century (in the event, he'd have to wait three years for that), the first continental European winner since Arnaud Massy in 1907 (ditto) and the biggest surprise winner since...well, maybe ever.

His inability to understand anything but the most rudimentary English insulated Seve, and so it was within this serene cocoon that he stood on the first tee of the final round of the Open, playing in the final group, again paired with Miller. “It was probably the most relaxed I've ever felt while being in contention,” he said. “I felt no pressure, no obligation.”

On the first hole, a long par-four, Seve was in trouble off the tee and faced a 20-foot putt for his par. He holed it. Miller missed from four feet for his four. Seve was three ahead. ‘Oh my God', thought Miller. ‘That's going to give him confidence.' Seve looked at Miller and read what the other man was thinking – “He may play unbelievable and win the tournament.” The scarcely credible was beginning to look likely.

But that was as good as it got. Within a hole, the lead was down to one. Seve bogeyed the 2nd, Miller birdied it. Matters were soon spiralling out of control, along with his swing, as Seve visited hitherto uncharted areas of Birkdale on almost every hole. He took a double-bogey at the 6th, a triple-bogey at the 11th. When Miller chipped in at the 13th for an eagle three, it was over. In a gracious acknowledgement of defeat, Seve shook Miller's hand. He then looked at a leaderboard and was alarmed to see how many players had overtaken him. A birdie at the 14th and an eagle at the 17th sorted that out, but he needed a birdie four at the last to tie for second.

On the 17th tee, Miller had spoken to Seve – in Spanish. As a native of California, it was no surprise that Miller had at least some fluency with the language, but he hadn't spoken a single word in it to Seve over their previous 34 holes together. “I was a little bit shocked,” admitted Seve. “He said ‘It's important for you to finish well because Mr Nicklaus is already in the clubhouse [on three under par].' So I eagled that hole and birdied the last, with a nice chip-and-run between the bunkers.”

That “nice chip-and-run” from some 15 yards short and right of the green was to prove a harbinger. Over the next 20 years, we would witness and thrill to such strokes of genius. Rather than settle for a regulation pitch shot over the bunkers which would require him to make a medium length putt for his four, Seve took on the only shot that could get him close to the pin, knowing that if he failed to execute it properly he was running the risk of taking six. His chip was perfect, threaded through the tiny gap between the bunkers, leaving him a four foot putt in order to tie for second. In those days, Seve missing a four-foot putt was like England winning a penalty shoot-out.

It hardly ever happened. Nor did it on this occasion. It seemed fitting even at the time that Miller, the champion, had already putted out. The final act of this Open was Seve's. At his press conference later, Miller said: “It was Seve's driver that killed him. [A refrain that would be heard down the years, with sonorous regularity.] I really think that if he could have contained himself and used a 1-iron, he might have won.” He added: “I think the best thing for Seve today was that he finished second. His day will come.”

Seve had no clue what Miller was talking about. “I thought that was ridiculous. It is always better to win than come second. But in retrospect I could see what he meant. A lot of things happen, and happen very quickly, when you do something like that, and it is not usual for someone so young to win a major championship. In a way, even three years later, I was not fully prepared for what happened.”

By THe end of June 1979, Seve had been assailed by the odd doubt about himself. He hadn't won since the Japanese Open the previous November and in May '79 he had been given a horrible reminder of mortality. A friend of his, the 29-year-old Spanish golfer, Salvador Balbuena, died of a heart attack at the French Open. Seve gave his prize-money (he tied for third) to his widow. Over the first weekend of July, Seve at last got off the mark for the year, winning the Lada english Classic at The Belfry by six shots from Neil Coles. Three weeks later, he was at Royal Lytham & St Annes, on the Lancashire coast, for his fifth tilt at the oldest title in golf. Roberto de Vicenzo helped plan the route to victory; a lengthy route. The Argentinean observed that if you hit it far enough, the rough was thin and sparse and in any case there would then be less distance to go to the green. The thick stuff was back towards the tee. Seve could simply hit over it all. He need not be so worried about accuracy. This was perhaps just as well. In reviewing the 1979 Open, Colin Maclaine, the chairman of the championship committee of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (R&A), which organises the event, said: “That the winner, Severiano Ballesteros, chose not to use it [the course] but preferred his own, which mainly consisted of hay fields, car parks, grandstands, dropping zones and even ladies' clothing, was his affair.” I'm afraid I can't shed any light on the particular incident of the ladies' clothing, but the car park was quite a story.

Seve began with a 73, two over par, ordinary stuff. There was nothing ordinary about his 65 the next day. He birdied four of the last five holes, mightily impressive stuff in any circumstances, but especially so in a major championship and even more so given the ferocity of Lytham's notoriously rigorous finish. Curiously, the one hole he didn't birdie was the easiest of the lot, the short par-four 16th (he would make amends in spades for this oversight in the final round), and two of the four were exceptional – a chip-in on the 15th and a three at the last after playing what was effectively a 150-yard pitch-and-run under the wind with a 5-iron from an awkward lie. Hale Irwin, the recently crowned US Open champion who led the field (and Seve) by two shots at the halfway point, was told that Seve had played the last five holes in 16 shots. Genuinely incredulous, he said: “He must have left some out.”

Seve played with Irwin in the third round. In some respects, it was 1976 revisited. Then he and Miller played raggedly on the Friday. This day, he and Irwin did. Both shot 75, but the pack was not so much chasing as chastened. Irwin ended the day with Seve still the closest man to him. After two holes on Saturday, the last occasion on which the first day of the weekend would be the last one of the Open, Irwin had lost his lead. Seve had a birdie two at the opener, Irwin took a double-bogey six at the 2nd.

Irwin never regained his advantage, but as Seve inadvertently sought out previously unknown parts of Lytham with his driver, both Rodger Davis of Australia and Isao Aoki of Japan held the lead at some stage. Seve had to wait until the final six holes to produce the killer blows.

The first came at the 13th, a 342-yard par-four. Seve attempted to drive the green. He was within a yard of pulling it off, the yard by which his ball failed to clear the last bunker. His drive had carried an estimated 298 yards – this with old equipment, remember. From the hazard, he conjured up a marvellous 70-yard bunker shot that reached the the edge of the green. The birdie putt from 30 feet was greeted with a two armed salute. That thrust was then parried by the course. He bogeyed the 14th. But a deft chip saved his par on the 15th and he led the field by two shots. Now it was car-park time. Seve's drive on the 16th was right of Franco. Fortunately, it wasn't too wayward to miss a temporary car park that had been set up for the final day. He'd have a clear line into the green, or at least he would once a bit of automotive reshuffling had occurred.

While he later took a lot of flak for that errant drive, not least from an ungracious Irwin who mumbled that Seve had been lucky – “I can't understand how anyone can drive that badly and still win an Open Championship” – and that he wouldn't win another major, Seve was only implementing the strategy that he and de Vicenzo had agreed upon: to hit it as near to the green as possible. He was also mature enough to realise he would get a free drop from the cars in that trampled down rough. And for all the subsequent jokes about how the only driving that Seve could do in a straight line had to involve cars, he had taken left (where the danger was) out of the equation, and the fact that he only had 90 yards to go to the flag showed that he couldn't have been that awry. His sand-wedge second shot was into the wind. It finished 20 feet from the stick and the putt was never anywhere but the centre of the hole.

At the 17th, he save par from a greenside trap, for the 14th time in 15 efforts in the week, and he could play the last with the luxury of a three-shot lead. Walking through the crowds that traditionally flood the final fairway at the Open, Irwin waved a white flag in surrender. Whether it was mock or not was debatable.

Seve took two putts from some 70 feet and received the tumultuous acclaim reserved for the Open champion. Not since England's Tony Jacklin stood on the same green ten years previously had there been a more popular one. He finished the championship on one under par to win by three strokes from Jack Nicklaus and Ben Crenshaw. Irwin had stumbled home with a 78. If some wanted to carp that he was the car-park champion, Seve didn't care. He'd got the claret jug, not a ticket or a wheel clamp. He was aged 22 years, 3 months and 12 days. He and his three brothers, who engaged in a lachrymose embrace even before he'd completed the formalities of signing his scorecard, even indulged in a little champagne. It was the happiest day of his career, but not the most surprising. As far as Seve was concerned, he was just accomplishing what he had always known he would.

AfTEr SEvE'S triumph at Lytham, Tom Watson won three of the next four Opens, in 1980, '82 and '83. The missing one was at royal St George's at Sandwich in Kent, the place Seve had quickly come to loathe on his first encounter with links golf at the PGA Championship in 1975.

Going into the 1981 Open, Seve had won the Scandinavian Enterprises Open two weeks before. His form and confidence were high. During the final practice round, he had ripped a 1- iron through the roaring wind to the heart of the 15th green. He turned to his caddie and pronounced: “Now we are ready.”

But the weather wasn't ready to co-operate. Aside from the fact that it is always played on a links, the aspect that sets the Open Championship apart from the other three majors is the impact that the weather routinely has on events. The tee-off time you draw can be vital, especially at those Open venues – i.e. all of them except for Birkdale and Muirfield, where the courses are laid out in two loops of nine, each of which returns to the clubhouse – where the course is basically configured in an outward and an inward nine. Be really unfortunate and you can draw the worst of the weather both days for the first two rounds. Such was essentially Seve's fate at Sandwich. You can't win a golf tournament on the first day but you can go quite a way towards losing it. Seve shot 75-72 to trail the leader, Bill rogers, by nine shots at the halfway mark. Demoralised, he finished the week 17 strokes adrift, in a tie for 39th.

The 1984 Open was played over the Old Course at St Andrews, universally regarded as the oldest golf course in the world. This may or may not be strictly accurate but no one seriously disputes that St Andrews is the spiritual cradle of the game, the ‘Home of Golf', the most famous piece of golfing ground in the world. This particular corner of the east coast of Scotland, the ‘Kingdom of fife', is home to the university of St Andrews. But as distinguished as the university is, it is for golf that the town is renowned. The essence of the game envelopes its buildings and streets as surely as the sea mists that regularly perpetrate themselves upon the inhabitants. In the countless bookshops and pubs, there is no getting away from the game. The very location of the course is an incessant reminder of what the place is all about. The 18th hole is part of the town itself.

The golf course looks utterly unprepossessing. No one would dare build it today. It may be the course that established 18 holes as the norm for a round of golf (this in the 1760s, when the layout was reduced from 22 holes) but nowhere else would you find a top-ranked course with just two par-threes and two par-fives. When the great American golfer of the day, Sam Snead, later a hero of sorts to Seve, came to St Andrews for the 1946 Open, he recorded that he thought it was “an old abandoned sort of place...so raggedy and beat up I was surprised to see what looked like fairway among the weeds. Down home we wouldn't plant cow beets on land like that”. And he won the championship!

But Bobby Jones, the greatest amateur golfer who ever lived, the one and only winner of the original Grand Slam – the Open and Amateur Championships of Britain and America – in 1930, later said: “I could take out of my life everything except my experiences at St Andrews and I'd still have a rich, full life.” Jones, who founded the Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament, was made a Freeman of the Burgh of St Andrews in 1958. He died in 1971. The next year, the 10th hole, previously nameless, was christened ‘Bobby Jones'. Only one other hole, the 18th, called ‘Tom Morris' in tribute to the four-time Open champion and legendary 19th-century son of the town, is named after a person.

Jack Nicklaus, the greatest golfer of his generation and winner of the Open over the Old Course in 1970 and 1978, was driven by Jones's edict that to be considered a great, a golfer must win at St Andrews. “There isn't a place I would rather win a championship than on the Old Course at St Andrews,” he said. So it was to St Andrews that Tom Watson arrived in 1984 seeking to win his third consecutive Open. That feat had been achieved by Peter Thomson as recently as 1956, but if Watson were to win, he would join Harry Vardon, the British giant of the game at the turn of the century, as the only six-times winner of the claret jug. And he wanted the title for another reason. He had won the title at each of the other four Open venues in Scotland – Carnoustie (1975), Turnberry (1977), Muirfield (1980) and Troon (1982). This would complete the handful, and at the place where everyone wants to be champion at least once.

Seve had designs on the crown as well. He hadn't won thus far in 1984 but after working on his game with the assistance of two friends, Vicente Fernandez and Jaime Gonzalez, both Argentinean tour pros, he felt comfortable and in control. His first three rounds were 69-68-70. At nine under par, he was tied with Bernhard Langer, his final-round playing partner. Behind them, leading the championship on 11 under par, were the novice Australian, Ian Baker-Finch – and Watson. The latter had fired a 66 on Saturday and was perfectly placed to realise a lifelong ambition or two. But as Seve left the interview room that Saturday, he said to the assembled press: “I'll see you all in here tomorrow evening.” He didn't mean as a loser.

Throughout the next afternoon, he looked at the leaderboards. Birdies at the long 5th and the short 8th gave him the lead, this for the first time in the Open since he had won at Lytham five years before. Seve bogeyed the 11th before a birdie at the 14th got him into a tie for the lead with Watson, who had birdied the 13th. Nothing was happening for Langer, Baker-Finch was on his way to a 79, and no one else was remotely threatening. It was between the two of them.

The breeze strengthened as Seve arrived on the 15th tee. He reached into his bag and took out his navy blue sweater, chosen to go with his white shirt and navy trousers. He put it on. He was now clad exactly as he had been at Lytham.

(This nautical sartorial combination was one he mostly reserved for the Open, but for Seve blue has been the colour ever since he wore a shirt of that hue when he clinched his debut tour victory in Holland. He also wore blue, in different shades, for his two Masters victories. For the record, the royal blue shirt he wore to lose the 1986 Masters was a Nike model. Clearly, as Tiger Woods has repeatedly demonstrated on major-championship Sundays, they work better in red.)

Seve parred the 15th and 16th without drama or anxiety but as he got to the 17th tee, he had reason to be fearful. The ‘Road Hole', as it is called, is generally reckoned to be perhaps the toughest par-four in the world. Measuring 461 yards, it called for a blind drive over the corner of the Old Course Hotel (more romantically, there used to be railway sheds there before the line that used to run alongside the course was ripped up) to a narrow, sinuous fairway. Into the hotel grounds on the right is out-of-bounds, which is where Seve had gone when leading the championship in the second round in 1978. That year, he played the hole 5-6- 6-5 for the four rounds, six over par. He finished the Open seven shots behind Nicklaus.

The safe line off the tee, to the left, invariably means that you get tangled up in thick rough and the green is then much harder to hit and hold. The green is shallow and raised on a shelf. In front of it is a bunker so hideous that Hitler wouldn't have been seen dead in it – “eating its way into the very vitals” of the green, wrote Bernard Darwin. Behind is a road, from where the ball has to be played up to a ledge on which the green sits.

Seve had suffered five bogeys in the championship to this point, three of them here, two of those with one-putts. He badly wanted a par this time around. Again he drove left. The rough was thick and matted down but Seve's lie was not too bad. He could get a 6-iron on the ball. The question was whether that could get him the 200 yards to the green. It did – the shot of a champion. Two putts from 50 feet secured the par. It felt like a birdie.

On the last, as straightforward a par-four as the 17th is fiendish, Seve hit a good drive and a wedge to 12 feet below the hole. The putt was on line all the way but seemed as if it would stop on the lip. As if making one final determined effort, the ball toppled into the cup for a birdie three. He went mad.

“I knew the putt was very close,” he said. “You never think whether the ball is going to go in or stay out. You just watch it. I could see it was close and then – it goes in. It was the happiest single shot of my life.” His celebrations were extravagant, like a matador enjoying the best kill of his life. “I nearly killed my caddie,” said Seve of the embrace he gave Nick de Paul. “I was so excited.” That image of his moment of exultation is iconic. Seve adopted it for his corporate logo and even had it tattooed on his arm. It meant that much. What added to his pleasure was the fact that his mother, who had never attended the Open before, was with him.

There was more pleasure, of course, in the identity of the man he beat. Watson could have caught Seve with a 4-3 finish of his own, but after an ideal drive down the 17th (in fact, it started out so close to the out-of-bounds that Watson initially thought he might have to hit another tee shot), he went with a 2-iron for his second shot. It was a bad misjudgment; way too much club, His ball finished on the road and he took a bogey five, just before an unknowing Ballesteros was sinking that putt on the 18th. By the time Seve had signed his card, he knew Watson needed to hole his second shot at the last to force a playoff. That forlorn hope didn't happen.

Seve'S Best round in the Open was probably the closing 65 that propelled him to victory in 1988, the first time the Open had returned to Royal Lytham since 1979. It was a scintillating performance in which he only missed three greens and three fairways in a marvellous display of controlled, powerful golf. Seve dominated this championship from the outset. He had begun the week as 8-1 co-favourite with Sandy Lyle, the Scottish golfer who in 1985 had become the first Briton to win the Open for 16 years and who was the reigning Masters champion.

The bookmakers liked the fact that Seve didn't have a brother on his bag (vicente had taken the rap in many quarters for Seve's muddled thinking during the closing stages of the 1986 Masters). Instead, about to become the third different caddie to win an Open with Seve, Ian Wright was the man. As Nick Faldo had done the previous year, on his way to victory in the Open at Muirfield, Seve opened his title bid with three consecutive birdies and added two more at the 6th and 7th, both par-fives. Five under par through seven holes; what was that about not being able to win a tournament on the first day? And this was a cold day, with the temperatures below 50 degrees and the wind at over 40 miles per hour.

Out in 30, Seve found the back nine altogether more unpalatable, as is usual at Lytham. He came home in 37, making two breathtaking bogey fives, at the 14th and 18th. For the former, he had to take a penalty drop from an unplayable lie after his second shot, from where he hit blind 7-iron to within 15 feet and made the putt. At the last, his drive was deep into the bushes but another a one-putt got him out of jail. His fou runder- par 67 not only gave him the lead, it was, according to Jack Nicklaus, “one of the great rounds ever in the British Open”.

But a 71 on Friday left Seve trailing Nick Price by a shot, and he was two behind after the third round, which was played on Sunday after Saturday's play was washed out. As at Augusta in 1983, matters would conclude on a Monday. And very aware of what had happened to him at Augusta in 1986, Seve said: “So far I am beating the pressure but, as you know, the pressure is very difficult to beat.”

Unusually for the last round of a major championship, they went out in threeballs. Ballesteros, Price and Faldo were the last group out. It was no shock to see that Seve was again dressed in navy and white: his Open lucky colours. He birdied the first hole and was still a shot behind Price playing the 7th. Price hit a wonderful 2-iron second shot to within four feet of the pin. From the fairway you can't see the bottom of the flag on this hole, but the roars of the crowd told Seve that Price was close. He only had a 5-iron in, which he hit to six feet. He holed his putt for an eagle; so did Price. Faldo three-putted and was on his way out.

Seve caught Price with a 20-foot birdie on the 8th. After pars at the 9th, both made birdies at the 10th, Nicky from four feet and Seve from 20. Against a par of 5-4-3-4, Seve had just had four straight threes. On the par-five 11th, another birdie gained him the lead at last, an advantage he promptly squandered after a poor tee shot at he 12th.

Price, who had frittered the Open away in 1982 and had yet to win a major championship, was far from finished. His second shot to the 13th almost went in for an eagle two. Seve knew he could not afford to let Price get ahead again. He matched the birdie by holing from 18 feet. As if joined at the hip, they both bogeyed the 14th and parred the 15th. To the 16th, where Seve had so dramatically sealed the title nine years previously. This time it was a 1-iron into the fairway (there's maturity and experience for you) and a 9-iron, from 135 yards, that finished three inches from the hole. That birdie gave him the lead again, and for good. Later, Seve couldn't resist saying: “It's a pity that I didn't find any cars on the 16th today. Perhaps next time the R&A should park them on the fairway.”

There was one more anxious moment to overcome, as his drive on the last flirted with the right-hand bunkers. It finished in wispy rough from where – in his keenness not to go into one of the deep bunkers that protect the last green (he was only in four sand traps all weeks, as opposed to 15 in 1979) – he hit a 6-iron just over the left-hand side of the green. This was deliberate. Before going out to play, he had looked out over the 18th green and observed that if he required a four to win, the safe play was to go left. How his gorgeous 9-iron chip shot from there didn't go in for a three remains one of golf's enduring mysteries.

Ian Wright began to celebrate. Seve told him to cut it out. “Just a minute,” he said. “Nick still has to putt. I've seen things happen before.” If Price could hole his 30-foot putt for a birdie, there would be a playoff. Determined that his valiant effort to win would not come up short, Price sent his putt long and missed the one back. The two-shot margin the record books show Seve to have won this one by does tend to disguise how thrillingly close it was.

There was no doubt how much this victory meant to Seve. Since he'd stood in the 15th fairway at Augusta with the 1986 Masters in his control, he had lost his confidence, two Masters and chances at the US Open and USPGA in 1987. He had made Little Bo Peep seem careful. And it wasn't only that. Other European golfers were climbing furiously aboard the bandwagon that he had hitherto been driving alone. Lyle had won both the Open and the Masters, Langer had won the Masters and Faldo had won the Open. The European Ryder Cup successes in 1985 and 1987 had been in large part down to him but an individual triumph was well overdue.

“I didn't believe I would never win another major,” he said afterwards, “but I was a little bit worried. I was starting to wonder, you know, that my time was, you know?...”

He claimed this was his catharsis. “Now that shot [the 4-iron into the water at Augusta in 1986] will be way back in my mind. Instead, from now on, I will remember how I played today.”

For the time being at least, the demons exercised by that playoff miss at Augusta in 1987 had been exorcised.

Adapted from 'Seve: Golf's Flawed Genius' by Robert Green. Published by Portico, an imprint of Anova Books www.anovabooks.com and available from bookshops, priced £8.99.

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