As is well known, we are celebrating 25 years since José María Olazábal’s second victory at the Masters (1999) and 30 since the first (1994). Two round anniversaries in one fell swoop. With the constant feeling that time flies, the sporting achievements of this extraordinary player, self-made, from the old school, moulded and tempered in the simplicity, bonhomie and Stakhanovism of his family, and guided through the twists and turns of life and golf by the firm hand of his inseparable Sergio Gómez, sadly passed away almost four years ago, who was much more than his manager (friend, confidant, advisor, psychologist, loyal advisor, press officer and even caddie when needed…).
There are legacies and legacies. And that of José María Olazábal Manterola (Hondarribia, 1966) already transcends, as of today, the sporting merits that, for example, led him headlong into the Hall of Fame. Those who spend the most time with him and his professional colleagues know this well. His legacy attends, of course, to everything he has done on the field, with those sharp irons in his hands, but the depth of his figure, starting from that point of indisputable sporting excellence, is much deeper and more valuable. Let’s study it from all angles through different testimonies.
OLAZÁBAL AND FRIENDSHIP. “As a good Basque, hard to get in… But once you’re in, there’s no turning back. If he’s your friend, he’s all in. I’m still struck by how every year, without exception, he calls me on Christmas Eve and it’s not a courtesy call: he asks, he cares… I grew up idolising him and considering him my friend now means something incredible to me”. This is told by Gonzalo Fernández Castaño.
Let’s go with a recent event. A few weeks ago Chema travelled to the south of Spain to spend three days with his friend and colleague Álvaro Quirós. The main objective was to lend a hand in times of certain professional uncertainty for the Guadiaro native. “We went to work every day, whether it was raining cats and dogs or the wind was blowing as it was (which was precisely the case on those days). But the most important thing, as I see it, is that he did it for personal reasons with me, out of friendship. I simply realised that he would be happy if my golf started to improve because he saw me happier at work. At the end of those days I told him something like I wouldn’t know how to repay him for this and he just replied, you know, appearing on the leaderboard”, says the Andalusian player.
OLAZÁBAL AND THE PASSION FOR THE GAME. “I didn’t coincide with him in so many golf tournaments, but my experience with Chema has to do mainly with the passion he has for the game. That’s what he clearly conveyed to me the time I’ve been with him and I think it’s priceless. Because you also see that he’s a fighter. A born worker.”, says Nacho Elvira. “He’s one of a kind. In Augusta for example you see in full how he lives this sport, but in general when he gets involved with something he does it with all his might, whether it’s training or designing a course. When he’s made a decision there are no half measures”, adds Fernández Castaño.
“I’m lucky to spend a lot of time with him and what strikes you the most is the passion he has for the game on a daily basis, his dedication”, says Borja Martín, young Spanish talent and pupil of Chema in the Basque Team, high performance golf work group, supported by the Basque Federation, in which the double Masters winner is fully involved.
OLAZÁBAL, GODFATHER AND MASTER OF ALL ON THE PRACTICE RANGE. It is perhaps one of the features of his legacy that resonates most deeply among those around him. You don’t even have to be a close friend of José Mari, just a golfer in trouble who needs good technical advice, to put all your senses into helping you out. “The first time I dared to ask him for advice was in Pula, many years ago, and it turns out we ended up spending two or three hours on the putting green”, recalls Gonzalo. The putting green is indeed a common meeting place with Olazábal: “I was going through a bad patch with the putt and, being in Abu Dhabi, I asked Chema if he could look at me… He spent three hours with me and I was amazed to see him there, as if he had nothing else to do, on top of me, very attentive, not moving from my side, until he considered that the problem was solved. I have been very marked by that perseverance and that desire to help. I have been marked by the fact that time for him did not count if it was about helping someone. It’s really impressive”, explains Elvira. “Yes, he doesn’t leave it until he’s sure you’ve improved. And then you see him giving a short game lesson to Colsaerts, or to Havret…”, concludes Fernández Castaño.
“I have a very heavy memory of Chema from when I went to Augusta with my brother Alex. In the practice round he tried to explain to us on each hole what we had to do and how to play each of the flags… I learned more in the two practice days than in the 16 years I had been playing golf by then”, recalls Pablo Larrazábal.
“In my first year on the European circuit my short game was not up to scratch, so I asked Chema for advice, who explained in detail how he did it… To me, at that time, everything seemed like Chinese, but it’s incredible because over the years I’ve been assimilating it”, says Pedro Oriol, “over the years and with the hours I’ve been lucky enough to be able to practice with him”. Miguel Ángel Jiménez highlights “everything I’ve learned from him about how to approach the course and the best way to get into the greens”. “You see how he racks his brains trying to find a way to help others”, adds Martín.
A very specific event struck Jon Rahm, which he experienced in one of the editions of that Lacoste Promises that was held for a few years in Spain, a small circuit of five events in which the two best boys and the two best girls from each event qualified to play a final under the watchful eye and supervision of José María Olazábal, Miguel Ángel Jiménez and Nacho Garrido. Jon, of course, qualified for that final in La Sella and arrived with homework to do from his coach, Eduardo Celles. “There was an exercise that my coach had set me which consisted of taking a 5 iron and, with a full swing, trying to make only a distance of fifty metres… I was doing it terribly, each ball going one way and also sending them all to 120 metres, so I didn’t like doing it. And Eduardo told me, now that you’re going to see Olazábal, ask him if it’s a good exercise. I did and Chema didn’t say anything: he just took a 5 iron and started doing it himself, about ten times, hitting straight balls and nailing that fifty metre distance”. The lesson
“He’s like an angel. Because he’s a legend of our sport and you see him there always ready to help, to dedicate his time to you”, concludes Oriol.
OLAZÁBAL, GREAT STORYTELLER. There is a unique experience in the world of golf, especially Spanish golf, which is to listen to José María Olazábal tell golf stories. About the pure and hard game, about the competition, with names and surnames, about the tournaments. About the Ryder. About Seve, of course. Anecdotes with a wealth of details and even with the right dramatic pauses. “He’s a great storyteller. He tells them very well. It’s very nice to be near him because he always has a golf story to tell. He’s someone fun and close. Yes, fun, although maybe he doesn’t seem so much if you only know him from seeing him on the golf course or on TV”, says Jorge Campillo, probably the protagonist of some of those stories over time. “It’s incredible that I’ve been able to play so many times with the one I saw as a child winning the Masters twice… Then we’ve coincided quite a bit, even in competition. I remember a third round in Abu Dhabi”, he adds.
OLAZÁBAL, HALLMARK OF AN ENTIRE CAREER. There are those who even associate the figure of Olazábal with their entire career. The emotional story is from Rafa Cabrera Bello, who in fact graphically summarises the Basque’s legacy: “there was a ten-year-old Canarian boy who loved golf and who started to dream for real when he saw Olazábal win his first Masters. Then, five years later, already as a teenager with hopeful projection, he sees him winning the Masters again and from that moment on he doesn’t dream, but tells himself that he wants to be a professional golfer and that he wants to play the Masters. In 2005 I turned pro and achieved the first objective. And in 2016 I qualified to play my first Masters and, to top it all, Chema invites me to play a practice round, making that day one of the most beautiful, not just of my career, but of my life. I will be eternally grateful for the example he has given me on and off the field, for his countless advice and for the many hours he has dedicated to me”.
FINAL NOTE: The legacy, always the legacy. The one that came to him, for example, from the hands of Seve Ballesteros. “In 2014, when I was there with a chance of winning the Masters, I found a letter from Chema in my locker in which he said very nice things to me. I still have that note saved”. This is told by a Miguel Ángel Jiménez who, indeed, in the 2014 edition of the Masters went out to play on Sunday in the last matches and only two strokes behind the leader, with all the options of wearing the green jacket. Chema, in reality, had only replicated what Seve had done with him in his day, that note he left in his locker before playing the definitive round of the 1994 Masters and that started with that “Vamos Fuenterrabía”.
