“Once I was like you and I know it’s not easy; to be calm when you’ve found that something is going on; but take your time, think a lot; think of everything you’ve got because you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not”. Father and son, the beautiful song by Cat Stevens (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6zaCV4niKk), addresses a universal theme, the relationship between a father and a son, the vital advice that the former offers to the latter because the devil knows more for being old… And who hasn’t dreamed of quixotic deeds as a child or suffered for a teenage love or wanted to go up to the Moon or believed themselves to know everything without knowing anything? The parent is backed by experience and that, almost always, is sacred.
Let this initial paragraph, a tribute to the paternal figure, introduce this topic with the Woods family as the central axis, along with the Ballesteros saga and the Cañizares as major supporting actors in this film about Tiger and Charlie, about the best or one of the best golfers (and athletes) of all time and the young 14-year-old lad who aspires to follow in his footsteps or, at least to try. The megacrack father syndrome looms over the boy, who promises a lot at such a tender age, but who has a long journey ahead not just to equal Mr. Eldrick, let alone to achieve a tenth, to say something, of his triumphs. The kid is already becoming a little man and has achieved several victories in lower categories, although he has so much road to travel…
We talk to two golfers who lived situations parallel to the Woods, who face from Friday to Sunday a new edition of the PNC Championship, in their case together it will be the fourth. Javier Ballesteros and Alejandro Cañizares are sons of two golf stars. Both followed in the footsteps of the genius Seve and the great José María. Javier tried everything but fell by the wayside and Alejandro has had a long career, with two European Tour trophies in his showcases (Russian Open 2006 and Trophée Hassan II 2014). One and the other chose the same path as their parents. How did they live it? How did they deal with the pressure of being the son of? Did they suffer many frustrations? What advice would they give to Charlie Woods if they talked to him?
“I think it benefited me to come from where I came from because if not, I don’t think I would have played golf as I have. My father is the one who taught me to play and he is the one who motivated me. As a child I wanted to be better than him, a symbolic internal struggle that I had as a child, but it was my motivation and I have always been very proud of him. It is clear that when they tell you to swing like your father, to see if you are better than him… when they try to compare you it is hard for a child. And I don’t think it’s positive. We often don’t realise what we say to children and how it affects them more than we think”, explains Alejandro while preparing for the Challenge Tour season.
Alejandro Cañizares: “As a child I wanted to be better than my father, it was a symbolic internal struggle that I had as a child”
Javier has no doubt: “Being Seve’s son I have always seen it as something positive. I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a professional player, my father always told me it was a tough world. From a very young age I learned that you have to work hard, that talent alone is not enough and I have always seen it as something positive because I have never tried to be him or compare myself to him. My father was someone unique in the world of golf. And it never put any pressure on me or anything. One thing is people’s expectations of me and another is mine, which were high, because my goal was to reach the European Tour, which for whatever reason I have not achieved, starting from the basis that it is very difficult, but analysing it now with more perspective I have always seen it as an advantage”, says the eldest of the Ballesteros saga, who insists that he has never had the slightest memory of “feeling pressured or different from others for being the son of, mainly because I was never pressured at home; they told me that you had to train and sacrifice a lot, and that’s what I did, and that you had to have fun”.
More than pressure, Cañi was disillusioned for a while. “As a kid I was very competitive and my father was my idol, but then I had a break at 9 years old because with handicap 8 they put me from yellows when I played from whites, in the par 4 I didn’t reach in two, I lost interest and I stopped playing a bit until I was 12-13 years old. And at 15 I caddied for him on the Champions Tour for a whole August and I was so impressed by how he played at 51 years old that it got me hooked on competitiveness and the craving for golf again. Watching him was a spectacle, it was a change for me and I started with the monkey again. I wanted to be there, to be a professional”. And have you met your own expectations? “No, thank God because I have a desire to continue. My father is still beating me by a lot, he’s giving me a beating that you wouldn’t believe, haha. Now my motivation is to learn to enjoy golf, which is what I’ve lacked these years. These years it’s been an obligation and it’s created a lot of anxiety and physical problems for me. And now my goal is to be comfortable with myself on the course because I know that the competitiveness with my father is no longer real, although it never was completely, but it’s not even an image in my head anymore. He’s a crack, he played four Ryder Cups, World Cups, he’s won I don’t know how many tournaments, a lot of money on the Champions Tour… An incredible career, but I don’t need it to feel satisfied with myself, although that doesn’t mean I don’t dream of having great successes, but that’s my business, not because of my father”, emphasises the Malaga native.
Javier admits to regrets in his day for not achieving the intended objectives of being a Tour professional, but he doesn’t chastise himself either: “Yes, at home we were never imposed to play golf, they told us that we had to do sport, but we chose and I opted for golf and, yes, looking at it now it’s frustrating not to get where you want, but it’s part of the sport; my father always told me from a young age, that it’s not easy to get there, and I honestly don’t reproach myself for anything because I worked a lot, I looked for solutions for the swing or in physical work, and I couldn’t, but it’s true that it’s frustrating because when you like golf as much as I do, the nice thing is to be able to dedicate yourself to it and succeed. But it was never a barrier to know that it was complicated”.
Javier Ballesteros: “Work is not negotiable. My father always told me that from a young age and that advice he applied to himself”
Certainly, the spirit of effort was in his genes and was the main advice that Seve gave him: “Work is not negotiable. He always told me that from a young age and I can vouch for between 2000 and 2002, when I was 10-12 years old, many days at six in the morning I would go down to the gym with my father, he would do his routine and I would mess around there, I saw it as something fun, spending time with him. Then, over time, I saw it in another way, precisely the one he instilled in me, that work is not negotiable and you only had to see that he in the end had been playing quite badly at golf for five or seven years, had won Majors, had been number one in the world and still every morning he was working hard. There are many people who give you advice but don’t apply it, but my father did”, says Seve’s son, winner of five Majors and 50 trophies on the European Tour and the true leader of the revolution of the European Circuit and the Ryder Cup.
Javier thinks that he would have done the same if he had been an anonymous person instead of being the firstborn of a legend and recognises facilities in his beginnings compared to other players: “I was lucky to play certain tournaments on the European Tour and the Challenge that I would not have entered at my level. As I have already mentioned, being the son of, applied to my case, I have always seen it as something positive”. Alejandro, who has recently become a father of his second girl, does not believe that as a child many doors were opened for him for being the son of Jose María Cañizares because he won tournaments in Andalusia and was called up with the regional selection and then in the national teams, although “it is true that through my father, who carried the name of the Club Valderrama on the Champions Tour and did not charge for them, I was able to train there for free from the age of 15, along with my brother Gabriel, because it is the agreement he reached with Mr. Patiño, and for me it was incredible to practice on one of the best courses in the world, it was a privilege”.
And we come to Tiger and Charlie. What recommendations, suggestions, advice, warnings would they give to the young aspiring professional golfer? “It’s very difficult because he has a life that I can’t even imagine”, Cañizares points out. “Getting to where his father is very difficult because there have only been one or two like Tiger in history. I would tell him to play golf for himself and to find happiness within golf for himself, not for anyone, not to justify anything, not to meet anyone’s expectations. To focus, that is very difficult and for him even more so, that he is not affected by the opinions or the eyes of others and that he thinks more about himself and what makes him happy and fulfills him as Charlie Woods, not as a son of”, explains Alejandro Cañizares. Javier Ballesteros adds: “Charlie has all the tools to become a great player. His father and his environment know what it is to withstand pressure and expectations, and I imagine they are giving him all the tools so that he can play well. Obviously, the future is not written and it is not known whether this boy will go far or not. From the little I have seen of him on TV, I think he has all the conditions, both physical and swing, and mentally he is sure to be very good because his father will have taken care of that. I would only tell him to train a lot, that work is not negotiable…”.
Returning to another verse from Cat Stevens: “It’s not time to make a change; just sit down and take it easy; you’re still young, that’s your fault; there’s so much you have to go through; find a girl, settle down; if you want, you can marry; look at me, I’m old but I’m happy”. Father and son. Father and son.
