Trouble-shooting - Rilegato

Ballesteros, Seve; Green, Robert; Cannon, David

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 055306164X ISBN 13: 9780553061642

Casa editrice: Broadway Books, 1996

Riassunto

Using 150 full-color photographs and step-by-step instructions, a golf pro known for his ability to make tough recovery shots shares his secrets for hitting out of the rough and other challenges. $25,000 ad/promo.

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The first shot I saw Severiano Ballesteros hit was his approach to the 18th green at Royal Birkdale during the second round of the 1976 British Open Championship. It was a glorious July evening in Southport, and his match was one of the last out, among the expected also-rans, as the clock passed seven. There were no celebrity pairings for him in those days.

I was not alone in watching this conclusion to the day's play. The 19-year-old from northern Spain, "El Kid," as he was inevitably dubbed by some of the tabloids--had shared the lead after the first round with a 69. Now he had the lead to himself, and consequently the attention of the spectators, who had never heard of him 24 hours before, and the media, who, although he had topped the previous year's Continental Order of Merit, had not felt he was likely to do much this particular week.

After a huge drive at the last hole, then a par five, the golfing matador only needed a 5-iron to get home. His ball soared into the soft summer sky and found the heart of the green. Two putts later, he held a two-shot advantage at the halfway stage of golf's oldest championship. His closest pursuer was Johnny Miller, the golden boy of American golf, who told us--since the young man didn't even have an elementary command of English to do any informing himself--that his precocious rival was less formidably known as "Seve" and that, curiously, he was competing in this Open with a set of Johnny Miller-endorsed clubs.

A contemporary account of Seve that week described him as a "slashing player with a glorious, uninhibited swing, a talent for playing spectacular recoveries that his inevitably wayward driving makes necessary, and a wonderfully smooth putting stroke." Twenty years later, Seve's driving is still his weakness; his skills for recovery remain matchless.

He finished second in that Open, as Miller won by six shots. Three weeks later, Seve won the Dutch Open by eight. It was the first of what would be over 70 tournament victories worldwide, including the Open Championship three times and another of golf's four majors, the Masters at Augusta, twice.

Over the past 20 years, I have seen Seve hit thousands more shots, many of them rather less quotidian than a 5-iron to the middle of a green and several of them used in this book as a means of illustrating his transcendent talent for conjuring up breathtaking golf shots, of presenting the near miraculous as almost mundane, even in circumstances of intense competition.

There are many more shots to marvel in addition to those mentioned here. That Open of 1976 is remembered by many people not for Miller's win but for the wonderfully audacious chip-and-run that Seve hit to the final green, which bumped his ball between two bunkers and enabled him to make the birdie he needed to tie for second. Twelve years later, an equally deft touch from a fluffy lie beside the last green at Royal Lytham assured him of his third British Open title.

I also vividly recall the 1983 World Match Play Championship, where Seve was facing defeat in his first round match against Arnold Palmer. With Palmer one up and just through the green in two on the last at Wentworth, Seve's only realistic hope was to hole out for an eagle three and take the match into sudden death. The problem was, he was about 20 yards short of the green and 40 yards from the flag. The solution was to hole the chip. He did and then beat Arnie in overtime.

No golfing theater has regularly witnessed Seve in excelsis as much as the Ryder Cup. There was his incredible shot from a bunker on the last hole of his singles in 1983 (referred to in these pages); his inspiring the first defeat of the Americans for 28 years in 1985, his match-winning putt in 1987, the watching of him be all over the place yet play such a vital role in Europe's triumph in 1995. That's just a few of the top-line highlights.

Maybe the moment I especially regard as depicting vintage Ballesteros came in the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island, in the match which the United States ultimately won when Bernhard Langer missed a putt of five feet on the final hole of the final singles.

The previous afternoon, Seve and JosÚ Maria Olazabal, perhaps the greatest partnership in the history of the competition, were one down with four holes to play in the fourballs against Fred Couples and Payne Stewart. On the 15th, it seemed the Europeans were bound to win the hole to draw level. Stewart was in his pocket; Couples in a greenside bunker in three. Then, suddenly, he was in the hole in four his trap shot had gone straight in. It had looked like Olazabal's four would secure the hole for Europe; now Seve needed to sink a downhill 15-footer for a winning birdie three. It was a potentially startling reversal for the Spanish pair, and the pressure was very much on whereas moments before there had seemed none, but somehow there was never any doubt that Seve would make the putt. Again, he did. The last three holes were halved and, with them so was that particular match.

That unwavering resolve is manifested in the quality of Seve's entire short game, and the never-say-die confidence it breeds helps to underpin his positive attitude to the difficult predicaments he often finds himself in on the course; the sort of situations he tries to help you with in this book.

You perhaps wonder if some of these shots really can be played by an average golfer. They can, believe me. I've done it--and there are many days when to call my golf "average" would be verging on unctuous flattery.

A few years ago, Seve explained to me how to play the parachute shot. He instructed me on the technique required to play what on first try seems a frightening risk--a full swing to send the ball a few yards. With my first effort, I thinned the ball into the bunker just in front of me. With my next attempt (honest!), the ball ended six inches from the cup--closer than any of Seve's earlier shots had finished.

I was thrilled beyond words. "There," said Seve cheerily. "See what I mean? It's not hard." But, equable as he was, he was equally determined not to be upstaged, even over something so trivial. He took back his sand wedge, dropped down another ball, and played the shot again. This time he holed it. That's another reason why he is such a successful trouble-shooter. He never gives up; he never thinks he's beaten. I guess the lesson is that neither should we give up.

"Sometimes it seems better for me to be behind a tree than in the fairway," he said one day when we were doing the photo shoot for this book at Valderrama in southern Spain. The words were uttered with a grin, but also with that deep, meaningful expression you feel he should patent. "Then I can see the shape of the shot I have to hit and what I have to do to play it."

After reading this book, here's hoping you can see how to hit a few of those yourself.

Dalla seconda/terza di copertina

perhaps the most natural talent for golf since Sam Snead, Seve Ballesteros burst onto the international scene when, aged 19, he led the 1978
British Open into the final round before eventually finishing runner-up.  Since then, his great achievements--winning five major championships and more than seventy tournaments worldwide--have been marked by a dazzling array of shot-making and crowd-pleasing skills.

As though not content to win the easy way, Seve's extraordinary exploits have thrilled spectators around the world.  If most golfers drive into the trees, they are happy to escape with a par. Seve looks for a birdie. If most golfers are trying to get down in two from around the green, Seve is thinking about holing out in one.

No golfer in the history of the game has demonstrated more imagination in his analysis of the options that each shot presents or more flair in executing the stroke. In this book, Seve explains his philosophy for "trouble-s

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Broadway Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 1996
• ISBN 10: 055306164X
• ISBN 13: 9780553061642
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 172