Thanks for the memories

Dan Davies explains how watching Seve made him fall in love with the game of golf, and why he remains devoted to the Spaniard to this day

- Dan Davies

The first time I saw Seve in the flesh was at Wentworth on a rain-sodden day in 1982. I was 11 years old and a recent convert to golf. Mud squelched underfoot and puddles formed across the manicured acres of the Burma Road, but I could not take my eyes off the feline figure who prowled and scowled and illuminated the gloom with his beautiful swing and dazzling smile.

Seve was up against Sandy Lyle, a home favourite, in the final of the Suntory World Matchplay Championship and yet most people in the crowd were pulling for the Spaniard. “I always found it a very special experience playing in the British Isles,” Seve explained in his autobiography a quarter of a century later. From his first round at Royal St George’s in 1975, he said he had “felt loved and appreciated by the British press and public. They treated me well as soon as they got to know me.” At Wentworth, it was the same. Seve triumphed on the 37th hole, retaining his title and winning the heart of one impressionable boy in the crowd.