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Seve Week: His Ryder Cup team-mates pay tribute
Four European stars hail Seve's extraordinary impact on the matches
Sandy Lyle
Ryder Cup 1979 and 1983-87
WHEN I first met him I wasn’t a pro but everyone was talking about this 17-year-old who was going to be a world-beater.
That year I was playing at Stoke Poges and I was drawn out with him; he was good and shot something like 74 and I was round in 71.
He said ‘you very good player’ and I thought we’d next see him in a couple of years. Soon after he nearly won the Open.
We were always good pals and always got on well. We competed against each other for years and it gave us so much encouragement when he won the Masters not once but twice.
He was a character – sometimes you knew to stay away from him but on the course there was no one more exciting.
He was a bit like Phil Mickelson these days, people loved to watch him and you never knew what he was going to produce.
Paul Way
Ryder Cup 1983 and 1985
IT was the first morning of the 1983 Ryder Cup in 1983 – foursomes. And I was obviously a bit nervous.
Seve looked at me and said ‘Don’t worry where you hit me Paul, I get you on the green.’ So I stuck him straight in the bunker and, true to his word, he knocked it on the green to 15 feet.
His shot out of the fairway bunker is always talked about as probably his greatest shot but he pretty much did it twice.
He did it with me in the fourballs; he was just outside the bunker but it was still ridiculous.
He came to me and said 'you did it' with tears in his eyes. Seve was all over the place in his buggy that week – to have the captain around you was big help.
Costantino Rocca
Ryder Cup 1993-1997
WHEN I started on tour in 1983, although Seve was younger than me, he had already won Majors and achieved everything
So I respected him so much. I watched him practise his short game – in case I could pick up some of his secrets!
It was the same on the course. I remember in 1991 at Monte Carlo he was fantastic.
We played the last round together. I was second at that moment, trying to catch him.
Even so, I remember he tried to help me by relaxing me so I played my own game – I will never forget that
Soon we were Ryder Cup team-mates (in 1993). We spoke a lot that week; he knew it was my first experience and he did everything he could do help on and off the course.
And I can remember Seve when we had finished. He had lost and I had lost and we cried together. Seve said "I cannot believe we have lost this Ryder Cup".
Four years later he was my captain. I recall we came to the 16th in my singles match with Tiger Woods.
On the tee he said to me 'the pin is right, the pin is right', suggesting I hit it down the left for the best angle in. I said to him 'I don't want to go to the bushes left!'
So, I missed the fairway right! But I saw a little gap in the trees and I said I would hit a 1 iron through the trees. He said 'What?! Wait, let's see what Tiger does'.
Tiger played and missed right and had a difficult chip. So Seve said just to hit it into the bunker front left of the green. I replied 'I can't play bunker shots like you'.
So I took the 1-iron and hit it on the green and made a par. I beat Tiger 4&2.
He came to me and said 'you did it' with tears in his eyes. Seve was all over the place in his buggy that week – to have the captain around you was big help to me.
When Seve passed away I spoke with his brothers and his family – it was not easy.
It was so sad he battled it for so long then it eventually beat him.
Gordon Brand Jr
Ryder Cup 1987
ON my Ryder Cup debut in 1987 we had a good first day and were all in Jacklin’s room. Seve started chatting and the room went quiet.
‘Maybe we should introduce the Rest of the World players into the American side’ he said and a big smile appeared on his face.
We had never won over there and the fact we looked like doing meant so much to him, to move European golf forward. He was a difficult man to play with or against.
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