The Enigma Of Seve Ballesteros
A penetrating profile of the swashbuckling young man from Spain
Peter Dobereiner's profile of Seve Ballesteros, originally published in the October 1980 issue of Golf Digest.
Severiano Ballesteros is an enigma, no doubt about it. However, we who know only the English-speaking way of golf make him out to be rather more enigmatic than he really is. We try to translate him into terms we can understand, so that we can relate to him, but the message becomes garbled. For example, it is scarcely possible to watch Ballesteros on the course without recalling the young Arnold Palmer.
Here we have the same heroic attitude of full-steam-ahead-and-damn-the-torpedoes, the same explosive power of the stroke, the same feckless disregard for danger, the same suprahuman feats of snatching triumph from apparent disaster, and the same arrogantly bald attack with the putter. Inevitably we tend to assume that Ballesteros is like Palmer in every respect and here we make the first mistake. He isn't. He is more like Jack Nicklaus in his coldly calculating approach to golf and in the diamond hardness of his will.
And yet it would be equally as wrong to label him as another Nicklaus who happens to play like Palmer. The comparisons are superficial. Ballesteros is his own man, unlike anyone else. He cannot be easily classified because he has gone through none of the processes by which we normally classify people.
If you take the case of a young American professional golfer, you acquire a considerable body of knowledge about him as Soon as you learn that he graduated in business studies from Brigham Young University. That single fact provides information about his social background, his interests, his opinions. Listen to him speak for a minute and you build up the picture. Observe him on the Course and soon you know enough to classify him. With Ballesteros the picture must be built up piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle, with much twisting and examination and rejection of first impressions.
Take his origins. Ballesteros was born the fourth son of a peasant farmer in Santander on the northern coast of Spain. Even those simple facts may be misleading, since we commonly associate Spain with broiling sun, siestas, excitable latin temperaments and a national indolence expressed in that word manana. That is not the Spain of Ballesteros, for the northern coast, influenced by the Bay of Biscay, is often wretchedly cold, and wet and windy and its people are hardy and industrious. They have to be to live, for the land is not generous with its bounty. Geology molds the character of its inhabitants and Ballesteros is the son of infertile, rocky soil.
It is interesting (though futile) to speculate on how many potential champions have been lost to golf because of the accident of not being born near a golf course. That is how the champions used to emerge. Boys Who lived near golf clubs naturally started as caddies to pick up pocket money and they grew into the Ben Hogans, Gene Sarazens and Byron Nelsons. That is how the Ballesteros boys came into golf as caddies at the Real Pedreña Golf Club that bordered, and ultimately incorporated, the family holding. All graduated into the ranks of professional golfers, Baldomero and Vicente as club pros. Manuel as a tournament player on the European circuit.
Severiano went to caddie. and, like all the boys, often waited for hours for a bag. They filled in this time by chipping balls about, in the tradition of young caddies everywhere, and Severiano showed a remarkable attitude and touch for the delicate shots. They wagered each other pesetas or cigarettes and Severiano devised increasingly difficult tests, Such as tossing coins onto hard-pan and chipping them into a bucket (an excellent method of sharpening your short game, incidentally, in the living room although it is best to use a doormat for the sake of domestic harmony).
The caddies were not allowed to play on the course, so Ballesteros took his one club, a 3-iron, and hit balls for hours on the beach. In the quiet of the evenings he would steal onto the remote part of the course, out of sight of the clubhouse, and play real golf with his 3-iron, another excellent exercise for the beginner.
Above all, he reveled in his youthful strength and he liked to belt the ball as hard as he could. Why not? Youth is the time for flexing the muscles. That is what they are for. Besides, there was nobody there to preach the doctrine of three-quarter power. He hit flat out and gloried in his strength.
As for tactics, he applied the simple pragmatism of youth. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line so why not aim directly at the flag every time? If trees intervene, then you just fly the ball over the tops of them. Bunkers? Why worry about them? After all the hours he had spent on the beach Ballesteros knew how to control the ball from every type of sand, dry or damp. The Ballesteros philosophy of golf, uninfluenced by instruction books or the received wisdom of cautious elders, was born at the Pedreña course during those early teenage years. The elder Ballesteros brothers gave Severiano advice, help and encouragement when he asked for it but the youngster's stubbornness forced him to work out his problems for himself for the most part.
The one day of the year when the caddies were allowed to play Real Pedreña was for the caddies championship. Ballesteros won it at the age of 14, in such promising style that he was granted special privileges to play the course in the evenings. The next year he repeated his victory, with a score of level par, and he felt he was ready to take the world of pro golf by storm.
He traveled to Lisbon to try to qualify for the Portuguese Open, the first journey he had made away from home. He just managed to break 90 and returned to Santander embarrassed and disappointed but no whit discouraged. Next time would be better. So it was. Ballesteros learned by his experience and practiced like a demon.
