There are not many golfers in the world with one name. Arnie, Jack, Tom, Gary...and Seve. Severiano Ballesteros was in my mind the greatest European player to have played the game. Sure Faldo won more majors, Monty more money lists, but no one in Europe has ever won more golf tournaments and at the same time commanded the respect from players and fans alike.
So many words have been written in the last 48 hours about Seve and it's hard to add to them other than to give one personal recollection of someone who was fortunate enough to work with him on many occasions on the European Tour. In the mid 90s on the European Tour I worked for ProServ and one of our clients Canon was an Official Tour Sponsor. As part of our sponsorship we ran the Canon Shoot-Out Series for 6 years. The events led up to the Shoot-Out Series Final in Crans Sur Sierre at the, then Canon European Masters. Seve was always a supporter of the event series and played whenever he could, so much so that Canon ended up sponsoring him. He was always a great competitor and won the Final on a couple of occasions. We were always guaranteed a huge gallery if the great Spaniard was in attendance. The point of the Shoot-Out was to eliminate a player each hole - we started with 10 players for 9 holes, thereby giving us 2 players playing the last hole and finally one winner. If a hole was halved there was a "Shoot-Out" which was a chip or bunker shot or putt. The European Tour referee who accompanied these matches would have a pre-determined position for the shot. If Seve was in the 2 or 3 man Shoot-Out, without fail, he would confer with the referee and come up with a more difficult shot so the players could show their "stuff". Needless to say his shot selection was always tough, including his famous 3 iron greenside bunker shot. One another shot he would walk behind a tree and say "we play from here!". The referee duly obliged, after all it was Seve who was asking! I remember vividly, he never lost one of these Shoot-Out shots.
He was always a fierce competitor, even in those fun events and always a gracious host to our clients. A great man, he will be missed by all those who knew him and European golf lost its greatest this weekend.
