Seve versus Sergio.

[Jim Nugent]

Sergio's game has changed in ways that seem weird to me.  

When he was 20, he did not hit the ball very well. e.g. in year 2000 he only hit 61.9% of greens, which put him in 176th place on the PGA tour.  But his putting was great then: he averaged 1.733 putts per GIR, which was 4th best on tour that year.  

Now he is one of the very best ball strikers, but his putting sucks.  This year he has averaged 1.804 putts per GIR.  159th on tour.  

So as his ball striking has improved by leaps and bounds, his putting has fallen into a black pit.  

Seve saw all of nearly every course he played, but his putting and short game were always world class.  Does it surprise any of you that Sergio's long and short games have gone in such dramatically opposite directions?  

 

[JESII]

redanman,

agreed on all points, at least by my limited experience watching Seve on TV.

for the record, my question (which you quoted above) was directed as a response to Mark Pearce and his quote about all young players learning to swing the same. I would think Sergio's swing is as unique by todays standards as Seve's must have been in those days. Maybe, maybe not.

[George Pazin]

Maybe Mike Clayton will see this thread and chime in - he has provided some really interesting first hand stories/insight about Seve on here before.

Re: Sergio's putting -

Doesn't the Ryder Cup prove his putting woes are 100000% mental? He buries everything left and right, no matter the course, the situation, or the partner, in the team portion, usually dead center of the hole.

It's hard to imagine someone could be so good so young and not be a great putter. He just needs to remember that.

[JESII]

Born in November of 1974. I remember the celebrating strut down the 13th fairway after a second shot onto the green in '86, the chip on the final hole at Lytham in '88 and some of his golf at Oak Hill in '95. Not much to take from an apparently amazing highlight reel career. At leat I've got Sergio!

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

The difference between Seve and Sergio is mostly attitude.  Seve thought he was the greatest and simply refused to give up no matter where the hell he was -- rough, trees, or both at once.  His scrambling was also extremely demoralizing to his opponents -- Hale Irwin was tough as nails but he STILL complains about losing to Seve at Lytham that year, he just can't believe he lost.

George P:

Putting is 100,000 percent mental.  I thought everyone understood that.  But fixing a lack of confidence is in many ways harder than fixing one's swing.

[Matt_Ward]

JES II:

You may have also missed -- as many did before all 18 holes were televised -- the superb start Seve made at the '83 Masters. He simply crushed the likes of Watson, Floyd, Crenshaw and a few others I can't remember with, I believe, was a quick four-under start through five holes.

CBS still must be steaming because, I also believe, there's no video of what the Spaniard accomplished on that glorious Sunday.

One other thing -- Seve was simply thrilling -- even when the gamesmanship stuff was involved. You just knew anything could / would happen and his rivals (Azinger, Wadkins, et al) all wanted a piece of him.

Too bad the temptest in a teapot between Beaman and Seve kept him from playing more in the States.

Garcia needs to win majors and needs to knock off Tiger -- mano-a-mano before I even think about including him in the same sentence for overall golf impact -- on and off the course.

Geoff:

Small correction on the circumstances of Seve's win at Westchester in '88. He did hit driver as you indicated -- so did the three other gents in the playoff that year - Greg Norman, David Frost and Ken Green. None hit the green at the 10th -- the short par-4 -- but Seve's blast from the bunker was superb and his birdie there was no doubt a thrilling victory to watch. I should know - I was right behind him when he made the bunker shot.

[rjsimper]

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!  

[Geoffrey Childs]

JES II:

You may have also missed -- as many did before all 18 holes were televised -- the superb start Seve made at the '83 Masters. He simply crushed the likes of Watson, Floyd, Crenshaw and a few others I can't remember with, I believe, was a quick four-under start through five holes.

CBS still must be steaming because, I also believe, there's no video of what the Spaniard accomplished on that glorious Sunday.

One other thing -- Seve was simply thrilling -- even when the gamesmanship stuff was involved. You just knew anything could / would happen and his rivals (Azinger, Wadkins, et al) all wanted a piece of him.

Too bad the temptest in a teapot between Beaman and Seve kept him from playing more in the States.

Garcia needs to win majors and needs to knock off Tiger -- mano-a-mano before I even think about including him in the same sentence for overall golf impact -- on and off the course.

Geoff:

Small correction on the circumstances of Seve's win at Westchester in '88. He did hit driver as you indicated -- so did the three other gents in the playoff that year - Greg Norman, David Frost and Ken Green. None hit the green at the 10th -- the short par-4 -- but Seve's blast from the bunker was superb and his birdie there was no doubt a thrilling victory to watch. I should know - I was right behind him when he made the bunker shot.

Matt - I didn't realize we were standing next to one another near the bunker. I remember the combatants (Norman, Green and Frost and recall Frost playing extremely well) but not that they too hit driver.  Are you sure they all hit driver?  I do recall now that one of them hit it dead right into the trees (Norman?).  It was a thrilling conclusion.

Ryan - he was a shotmaker/safecracker.  Put a ball in any precarious spot and Seve would get it up and in.  I don't know what more to say.  Perhaps his up and in from the car park in one Open victory is a microcosm of his career.

[Scott Coan]

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'.
 

[Jim Nugent]

Crenshaw used to say Seve could play brilliant greenside bunker shots -- with his 2-iron.  

Interesting that Gentle Ben was also one of Seve's best friends, or so I heard.  

[Mark Pearce]

Legend has it that Seve learnt to play with a cut down 3-iron.  That is, he learnt to play every shot necessary for a round of golf with a 3-iron.

In a build up to this year's Ryder Cup Sky TV over here showed that 3-wood from the bunker in the '83 match.  Even now it beggars belief that he even thought of playing that shot, let alone carried it off.  Bear in mind too that it would have been a persimon 3 wood hit 250 yards from just short of the lip of a bunker.  Stunning.

[Matt_Ward]

Geoff:

Yes, we might have been right next to one another.

All four players pulled driver and you are right -- Norman did bail out to the right. Speaking of Norman -- I followed his final round that day and believe he shot something like 63-64 to make it to the playoff.

What a mano-a-mano on the 1st playoff hole with the likes of Norman and Seve staring each other down. I only wish these two could have faced one another more times.

What's interesting is that Seve had previously played the 10th hole in a playoff with J.C. Snead a few years back and duck-hooked his ball so far left that they never found it and Snead simply walked away with the win.

Like I said earlier we are fortunate in the greater NY metro area that one of the few regular American visits just so happened to be at Westchester CC.

[Phil Benedict]

I thought Sergio was a good putter when he arrived on the scene but he is terrible now.  This is something that is very hard to overcome in championship golf.  The lag in his swing may have created problems under pressure in the past but now it's mostly putting that holds Sergio back.

Seve was a great putter and he won his majors on courses where full-swing accuracy was not critical.  He rarely competed seriously in the US Open or PGA.

Seve didn't have Tiger to contend with, which is a huge difference between him and Sergio.

[Richard Phinney]

Has this board deteriorated to the point that rather than discuss architecture we are forced to describe why we loved Seve...Isn't it anuff just that we did.

I am wondering why he was able to transition from prodigy to all time great in both team and individual formats while Sergio is truly on track for an unbelievable Ryder Cup career (all time points leader in a couple more Cups) but falls flat in the heat of a Sunday afternoon in Major Championships.

Putting, putting, putting.  In pairs match play (Sergio loses his share of singles) three putting is not an issue and it sort of liberates him.  But in tournament golf Sergio has been an average to abysmal putter whereas Seve was  one of the very best putters in history.   Even when he was like 200th in the European order of merit in the late 1990s he'd be in the top five putting stats.