As someone who is not old enough to have seen Seve's emergence, and if not for sportswriters, fellow golfers, and documented history, someone who would only know Seve as that old guy who couldn't break 80 half the time in the Masters yet somehow still plays...
Can someone please explain to me what made him so great, without using superlatives or descriptions - can you explain an example, relate a story, cite something specific, that was indicitave of his skill, his imagination, and what made him so different?
For example, for Tiger one might point to the 6 iron on the 18th hole of the Canadian Open, out of a fairway bunker from 210+ yards (I think...) and cite his boldness, or the comeback for his third US Amateur title.
All I ever hear about Seve is that he was a brilliant player, a genius, and had an incredible imagination.
Please help me!
Recounted from Mike Clayton's book, "Golf from the Inside":
Seve had driven his ball on the 18th at the Swiss Open way right and behind a wall. Needing a birdie to catch Barry Lane it was seemingly all over. Seve asked his caddie, Billy Foster, what he thought.
'What do you mean what do I think? Chip it out, of course'.
'Billy, we need a birdie'.
'Yeah, but not even you can hit through concrete walls'.
"Billy, Billy, I think I can get over'.
This wall was 8 feet high, he was 120m from the green, there were pine trees on the other side of the wall to carry and he was maybe 5 paces from it.
Billy contemplated all this insanity, and decided there wasn't much point trying to talk him out of it.
'He took the club from the bag, and I walked out onto the fairway to watch where the ball went. Then I looked in the bag, and the sand wedge was still there. My God, the man has the pitching wedge! By now I am convinced he is more likely to kill himself than get the thing over the wall.'
Somehow he got the ball over the wall, through the trees, and up just short of a greenside bunker about 70ft from the hole. Naturally he chipped in for the birdie he needed (still did not catch Lane though as he birdied 17)...
No one, ever, would have contemplated the shot. If they had, it would have been dismissed as insanity, and the ball would have been chipped out on the fairway. And if some lunatic had tried, they never could have pulled it off. The next year we got back, and there was a plaque to mark the spot. It seemed even closer to the wall than anyone had imagined.
'Billy, was that really where the ball was?', I asked him.
'Exactly,' he said. 'I told you it was amazing'.