A New Reign In Spain

Like a giant gray curtain billowing in the wind, the cold rain would sweep in off the Bay of Biscay in midafternoon, and the members of the Club de Golf Pedrena would flee to the warmth and safety of the clubhouse. Only then would the swarthy little Severiano Ballesteros emerge from the caddie shed and, dwarfed by his golf clubs, walk onto his deserted stage. For hours on end he would hit practice shots, unconcerned that he was being soaked to the skin—and certain to receive a cuffing or scolding on returning home to his family's small farm in Spain's Basque country. Indeed, his mother seriously doubted whether pneumonia would spare the youngest of her four golfing sons long enough for him to reach maturity.

"At 12 the kid had the mind of one of 21," recalls Manuel Ballesteros, Severiano's elder brother, traveling companion and occasional interpreter. "He knew where he was going from the start. Golf was his life. The other caddies, they sat playing boys' games and laughed at Seve when he came in—how you say?—like a drowning rat maybe five hours afterward. They no laugh today. They still carry golf bags, while Seve, he travels the world playing tournaments."

More than any other single factor, it has been the meteoric rise of 20-year-old Severiano Ballesteros, unheard of outside Spain four years ago, that has enabled the Spaniards to topple the British from their traditional position as the leading golfing nation in Europe. Arguably, the Spanish are second in the world only to the United States.

Soon the Spaniards will challenge the mighty Americans to a series similar to the biennial Ryder Cup matches between the cream of U.S. professionals and their British and Irish counterparts. Since the Ryder Cup was presented for this competition, the Great Britain and Ireland team has won only three times (1929, 1933 and 1957), while tying once (1969) and losing 17 times.

The Spanish can be excused for thinking they might fare better. Of the 11 major events played this year in Britain and continental Europe before the epic British Open, the Spaniards won seven, and they did not compete in two that were won by an Australian and an Irishman. Ironically, the sole British success, by Scotland's Bernard Gallacher, was in the Spanish Open at La Manga. And in the first tournament following the British Open, Ballesteros won the Swiss Open, beating runner-up John Schroeder of the U.S. by three strokes. ( Ballesteros did not win the Scandinavian Open the following week; he finished third and luckily escaped serious injury after encountering lightning on the 14th hole during the second round.) But what is most impressive is that Spain has produced five different winners: Manuel (Sugar) Ramos (Portuguese Open), Antonio Garrido ( Madrid Open and the Benson and Hedges International), Angel Gallardo (Italian Open), Manuel Pinero (Penfold PGA Championship) and Ballesteros (French Open, Uniroyal International and Swiss Open).

Incredibly, Spanish professionals currently occupy five of the top 10 places in golf's British and European Order of Merit, including the top two—Ballesteros and Garrido.

Gallardo says, "The unbelievable success of Seve has made us all try harder. But even more fantastic, we are all pulling for each other. The boys used to get homesick and run away after a week or two in Britain. Now we work and live as a team, even more like a family."

Indeed, when Gallardo won the Italian Open in May in a four-hole sudden-death playoff against Britain's Brian Barnes, he was cheered over every inch of the way by every member of the Spanish playing contingent.

Although he is only 34 years old, Gallardo, a handsome, dark, chirpy little man whose voice rises as he chatters away like a machine gun firing out of control, is known to the "family" as El Abuelo (The Grandfather). Gallardo is a former captain of the Continental Tournament Players' Association, which this season merged with the British to form the European Tournament Players' Division, of which Gallardo is vice-chairman. His word is law and is accepted as such by his compatriots.

At Turnberry, on the second afternoon of the British Open, for instance, Gallardo, who had shot 65 in the morning, was heard to deliver a sharp rebuke to countryman Salvador Balbuena for failing to show up for a lucrative pro-am in Edinburgh the previous weekend and offering no explanation for his absence. Gallardo then blistered Ballesteros for complaining, some weeks previously, that his hotel accommodations were not up to standard and for walking out to find lodgings elsewhere.