This is the first time they have shared a practice round at a tournament, although they have gone out to play together many times. They did it today at the Emirates Golf Club in Dubai, where they are preparing to compete from Thursday in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. It is the first time, in fact, that they coincide together in a tournament of the European circuit… Well, of the European circuit and of any: they had never competed in the same tournament. Nacho Elvira (Santander, 1987) and Manu Elvira (Santander, 1996) are nine and a half years apart and until today their paths had not joined the lines, but finally they do. And both find the happy conjunction more than interesting.
“This week each one has organized the trip in his own way, because my wife and my daughter are here and he has come with his partner, but surely throughout the year we are going to share many flights, hotels and whatever is necessary”, explains Nacho, who acts as a good older brother, without being too annoying, as it is usually said. And that really, there is no posturing at all, he feels proud to see himself next to his younger brother in the first division of the European circuit.
It is not something that usually happens. Although in the history of Spanish golf there are very notorious cases. The reference to the legend of the two brothers Miguel, Ángel and Sebastián, and also to the Garrido brothers, Antonio, Patricio and Germán, or to the saga of the Piñero, Manuel, Juan Carlos and Alfonso, the Gallardo, Ángel, Jaime and Rafael, and of course the Ballesteros, with Baldomero, Manuel, Vicente and Seve (the four Ballesteros coincided, for example, in the Madrid Open of 1975, where also played the three Garrido brothers mentioned above). The most recent coincidence of two brothers in a tournament of the European circuit, however, was starred by the second generation of another renowned saga, the Cañizares, Alejandro and Gabriel. It’s the Elvira’s turn.
“If I had my brother’s driver I would win a few tournaments each year”. The sentence, probably somewhat exaggerated, is from Nacho. And he says it after Manu misses the fairway of hole 9, so that there is no shadow of opportunism in the comment. It is true that one of the great virtues of the younger brother is consistency in the long game. Besides, things as they are, Manu goes longer. When the older one, Ignacio, hits it sweetly, he can still argue some exit, but in general terms it is the youngest who goes further, without discussion. There is no problem: “that of being really happy when the people you love win here takes its maximum expression. If he wins all the tournaments and I come second, delighted”, explains Nacho.
Manu makes his debut in a tournament alongside his brother, but also does so in one of the Rolex Series. He walks with his eyes wide open, but certainly does not seem, of course, overwhelmed by events. And this is, in fact, his sixth appearance in a European circuit tournament, while Nacho already has 263 under his belt and one victory. Manuel, in any case, has already scored his good points this season, especially with that twelfth place in the Joburg Open. This year they are going to get tired of seeing each other and even the day will come when they compete together in the same match, who knows if it will not happen this very week… That’s what the golf elves are for, always attentive to any pirouette.
