Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle sit together for the first time in a fun and pleasant conversation for a DP World Tour podcast. If you have ninety minutes, invest in this delight: “It’s the first time we’ve sat together at a table for an interview,” Woosnam acknowledges. Not thirty seconds into the interview, and immediately the first name that comes up, mentioned by Ian himself, is the genius from Pedreña: “I wish Seve were here, I miss him a lot, practically every day.” Seve’s legacy is eternal, and it is impressive that a battle companion is the one to highlight it. Undoubtedly, the Big Five of the European Tour who took the tour to unimaginable heights. 16 Majors, 96 Ryder Cup points, and 211 weeks as Number One among the five. Quite something in five players from a legendary generation born just twelve months apart.
The camaraderie among the four present is palpable, and they all recognize Seve as the great driving force behind what the tour is today. Sandy Lyle, winner of two Majors and five Ryders under his belt, recounts: “I think he lit the fuse. Seve turned professional at just 16 years old if I remember correctly, and stories were already reaching me about a boy who showed a lot of promise. He was the spark that ignited everything.”
Sandy himself, a year younger, perfectly remembers the first time they crossed paths: “I was still a young amateur and played a Pro Am. At one point, Seve turned to me and said I was a good player and that things would go well for me.” That was the start of a beautiful relationship where Lyle recounts how they would go to each tournament to train together and challenge each other to make difficult shots or use 5-irons from the sand.
Faldo also doesn’t forget his first memory with Seve. “We were in Ireland at the Irish Open, he had recently won a tournament, and we were both 19 years old. That’s when we took our first photo together.”
The Englishman narrates Seve’s influence on his career and the Ryder: “Until that time, all players were very individualistic, they still are, but we were focused on ourselves, and if we wanted to improve our lives, we had to win. But in that, Seve was also a pillar of change, and undoubtedly the Ryder was the vehicle to make it possible. I still remember when we lost the 1983 Ryder by just one point, we were devastated in the locker room, and Seve came in, looked at us and Tony Jacklin, and told us we should be happy because we had shown we could beat them,” Faldo comments. “Before that Ryder, only a few believed it was possible; by the end, we were all convinced.”
Of Ballesteros as captain, Faldo has a vivid image: “When I arrived at Valderrama, he greeted me with ham and melon, told me he just wanted me to enjoy it and relax because the important thing was to have a great week of competition… but come Saturday night, he transformed, I remember him shouting and banging on the table saying that only winning mattered and that he didn’t want any bad shots on Sunday.” That’s how Seve was.
One of the best stories of the entire conversation is how Bernhard Langer won his first tournament on the Tour… Two weeks before his victory, Langer was on the putting green at Sunningdale when Seve asked to see his putter: “I gave it to him, he took three putts, handed the putter back to me… and walked away with the club. And I thought: “Wait a minute, Seve.” So I asked him: “What do you think of my putter?” He replied: “Do you really want to know?” I said yes, that’s why I was asking. I admired Seve, he was probably the best putter at that time. He said: “Well, if you really want to know, I think it’s too light and doesn’t have enough loft. It’s rubbish, basically.”
So said, so done. Langer went straight to the club shop, where he found a used putter, tucked away in a corner, and decided to buy it. It turned out it had belonged to an 85-year-old lady who had given up golf, so he got it for just 5 pounds. That week he finished third, the next he was second, and seven days later, he won his first tournament on the Tour at the Dunlop Masters.
In ninety minutes, the conversation had room to go in numerous directions. Langer, for his part, recalled how his fortuitous entry into golf happened. He acknowledges he was very good at many sports, loves skiing, ping pong, running, and was a very good footballer, but how did the German discover the world of golf?: “My older brother, who later became my manager, came home with several bills, I was nine years old and in the context of a fairly poor family, so I was amazed. He told me he had been caddying at a golf club, but I was too young for that. I didn’t even know what being a caddie meant, but I saw the money and didn’t accept the refusal, and after insisting a lot, I took my bike and showed up at the course, asked around, and was assigned a player. I went out with his bag on the first day, and it turned out he was the club champion, had a handicap of 2, and he said he liked me and that I would always carry his bag. My first love with golf was to make money, not to play it,” the German concludes with laughter.
Bernhard fondly remembers that his first clubs were actually given to him by that same club player who was changing them for new ones. Three new clubs, combined with the fact that caddies were allowed to practice at times, led him to start playing with some frequency. That’s how Bernhard’s empire began, for a handful of money and helping the family. “It was unthinkable for a boy like me from a small village of 800 people in the middle of Bavaria to dedicate himself to this sport. In fact, my classmates laughed at me. Life’s twists and turns seem to have proven me right.” Nick Faldo’s journey has some similarities, and he confesses that his coach tried to persuade him to quit… “only one in 10,000 makes it to be a professional,” he insisted, “well, I’ll be that one,” Faldo confidently replied.
From the early days on the circuit, the German recalls with quite a bit of humour how practice sessions were: “The clubs gave us very bad balls to train with, you didn’t know if the bad flight was your fault or if the ball was terrible. So we decided to bring our own balls, but of course, the caddies had to be there to pick them up while we all trained. It was very funny to see them trying to dodge balls. Some even lost one or two teeth,” Langer concludes with laughter.
Three of them have also been Ryder captains. Langer further enhanced his legend with a historic victory on American soil, and Woosnam extended the streak by retaining the cup two years later in Ireland. For both, without a doubt, the best week of their careers.
Two years later, it was Nick Faldo’s turn at Valhalla. A brutally hellish experience “The worst week of my life. I’ve erased it from my mind, I don’t want to remember it. When you lose a tournament, on Monday you work to recover, when you lose a Ryder, you’re massacred by the media and the entire golf world, no one wants to talk to you, you fall into the most absolute ostracism. It was a brutal experience, you want to defend your players, but in my case, it was not pleasant at all. Usually, when players are competing in the morning, everyone wants to play in the afternoon, but for me, it was the opposite. For example, I approached Sergio and told him he was going to play, and he replied no, that he was fed up, that he didn’t want to play another second, that he had been on antibiotics for two weeks and was exhausted. Obviously, he didn’t play, but the journalists came down on me for not putting the best player, and I couldn’t tell the truth. It was very difficult to manage,” the English legend concludes.
Sandy Lyle has also had that love-hate experience with the Ryder. “I played five times, which is spectacular, but I have the thorn of not having been a captain. I had no choice but to look forward, but it’s clear it wasn’t easy.” The Scotsman played five times, although in 1989 he made one of the most difficult moves: “I wasn’t playing well at all, and I called Tony Jacklin and told him that although I appreciated being on the team, I wasn’t at a sufficient level, so I told him to put someone else in.” It’s not easy to admit. Pure class.
