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RIP Seve Ballesteros

Yoda

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Borrowed this from PGA Tour website:

Ballesteros did everything with heart - win or lose

Oh what we would give to see Seve play one last time.
To see that swing, that easy smile. To think back to the magic and passion. To see him do that little fist pump one more time.
To look into those eyes that always told us everything we needed to know.
They would flash with passion and defiance. They would dance with every miraculous, mind-bending get-out-of-jail shot; with those magnificent moments; with those three Claret Jugs and two Green Jackets. They showed the pain of losing; the sadness of a divorce. They could make you smile or bore right through you.
We haven't been able to look into those expressive dark brown eyes since his last appearance at Augusta National in 2007. That thick dark hair was shorter, thinner and flecked with gray and white. The years of frustration on the course had taken their toll. He looked tired and a bit distracted. There was time for a smile but not much else. A fleeting hello. A reminder of the old times; the happier ones.
It would be his last Open as a player. He retired the following year after testing his game on the Champions Tour. It was the end of a long struggle that saw him go through a divorce, lose his game and lose his girlfriend in a car accident.
A little over a year later -- after a fainting at the Madrid airport in October, 2008, doctors needed three surgeries to remove most of a tumor the size of two golf balls from his right temple. They left a jagged scar and led to chemotherapy for the brain cancer that eventually took his life.
There was a moment there in 2010 when we thought he might make it to St. Andrews for one last walk across the Swilcan Bridge. He was supposed to play in a four-hole exhibition with other former Champion Golfers of the Year and he wanted to be there -- for the people more than for himself. He really couldn't have played, mind you, but just being there and allowing the course and the people to put an exclamation point on a brilliant career would have been a moment for the ages.
But he was too weak even then. His doctors told him not to travel. To stay home and take care of himself. In a way, it might have been a relief.
The swashbuckling young Seve always played to the crowds. You could feel his passion. You marveled at his brilliance.
He wasn't just one of the best players in the world. He was an artist. While others were hitting fairways and greens and sinking putts, he was putting his shots in unbelievable places and inventing ways to get them back on track. If most players had 20 ways to shoot a 65, Seve had hundreds. Maybe thousands.
Seve turned the impossible into a birdie or an eagle or a roar of a par. He had an God-given imagination and touch beyond compare.
He carried the European Tour until players like Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle and Bernhard Langer came along. He was the Arnold Palmer of the 80s -- a man whose charisma drove players to the game and crowds to the tournaments.
He made young players like Phil Mickelson want to live the dream and win a Green Jacket. He took our breath away with those marvelous shots he'd arch or bend or pick off the ground without disturbing a blade of grass.
He did everything with heart -- win or lose. And let us tag along for the ride.
He was fiercely private, yet incredibly charming. He was a proud man who seldom let down his guard unless, of course, you count celebrations like the iconic one when he won the 1984 Open at St. Andrews. Or, well, pick a Ryder Cup. He was the heart and soul of every team he played on.
Seve meant so much to golf -- to Phil -- that he reached out and asked if he could make the 2011 Champions dinner, he would love to serve paella or another Spanish dish in his honor.
Thinking back, I remember his disgust in his singles loss to an amazing Paul Azinger at The Belfry in 1989. A mind-boggling shot over a scoreboard and onto the seventh green at Augusta. Him pacing off every angle at the eighth green the Sunday of the 1986 Masters and the roar from his eagle. Sitting with him in the locker room at English Turn one afternoon for a story. Walking with his then-wife Carmen at the 1995 Ryder Cup at Oak Hill and watching him scramble from everywhere. A one-footed, off-balance shot off railroad ties on the 17th hole at the Shell Houston Open in the late 80s. How gracious he was to my mother the day she was the walking scorer with his group. She was beaming about him after that round.
That last conversation in front of the clubhouse at Royal Liverpool.
Seve's battle was a reminder of just how fragile life is; how quickly things can be taken away. Yet it was also about how he handled it -- with acceptance, passion and dignity. Valiantly, in British terms.
He hated to lose at anything and waged an unwavering fight. He battled back from every treatment. He created the Seve Ballesteros Foundation to support brain tumor research. And when he couldn't travel to Wales last fall, he offered support and inspiration in a conference call to the 2010 European Ryder Cup team. They played with his spirit and his passion and dedicated their win to the man they idolized.
The man whose career was as meteoric at the start as Tiger Woods' slid downhill quickly after winning his fifth major -- the 1988 British Open. He would win more events in Europe, but there were only a few flashes of the old brilliance. A fifth at the 1989 Masters and a share of seventh there in 1990. Two T3s in Houston. In 1991, a T5 at the Buick Classic and a T9 at British Open.
But even when the hope of a good finish -- let alone getting in contention -- was gone, he was still out there fighting. Still trying to create shots; to recapture that old magic.
Just the other day, I was cleaning out the sock drawer when I found a pair of red socks with Seve's then-logo on them. A gift from Carmen -- "You must have a pair,'' she said -- a few decades ago.
It reminded me of one more thing. The grin on his face -- and that little glint in his eye -- the day we were talking on the lawn at Augusta and he looked down and saw me wearing them.
I'll wear them one more time -- at Augusta or a British Open. To remember those magic moments in the 80s. To remember what he brought to the game.
 

Sir M

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Seve was my favourite player to watch, and was kind of my hero back then. He transformed European golf and was as tough of a Ryder Cup player as there ever was. At 54, he was way too young to go.

Thanks for this thread Yoda.

Sir M
 

Yoda

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Yes Sir M. He was a pleasure to watch. Watched a lot of interviews yesterday during the PGA Tour broadcast and he was loved by everyone and was a role model/hero to many, as he was with you. When he was younger he wasn't allowed to play on the courses so he played on the streets, dirt, sand, anywhere he could, and that's how he got so good at recovery shots. He could play the ball from anywhere. One of the best shotmakers ever.
 

Sir M

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The record may have since been broken, but I think Seve was at one point the youngest ever Masters Champion.

Sir M
 

Yoda

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He was until some guy named Tiger came along.

Youngest Winners
Tiger Woods, 1997 (21 years, 3 months, 14 days)
Seve Ballesteros, 1980 (23 years, 4 days)
Jack Nicklaus, 1963 (23 years, 3+ months)
 

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