VOLVO MASTERS ANDALUCIA
Poulter wins Battle of the Young Guns
but Seve is still firing the shots
One of the most appealing aspects of tournament golf is that there is always something equally captivating occurring off the course. Of course, there was enough happening on the course at Valderrama in the final round of the 2004 Volvo Masters Andalucía to keep everyone entertained and enthralled.
But before the tournament drew to an exciting conclusion, with Sergio García, Ian Poulter and Alastair Forsyth vying for the title till the final shot, there was the Latest Case of Seve.
Severiano Ballesteros is going through a difficult stage of his professional life. He hasn’t been able to hit a Tour shot in anger all season – but off the course he’s still in the news. And apparently a little angry.
As the Volvo Masters leaders were on the practice ground at Valderrama set for the last round, European Tour executive director-designate (meaning he is taking over from long-time incumbent and Seve bete noire Ken Schofield at the end of the season) George O’Grady was explaining to the press that no action would be taken against Seve until the Tour had received a full report of its investigations into an alleged contravention of its players’ code of ethics.
And what has Seve allegedly done?
Apparently at the Spanish over-35s amateur championship in Pedreña – his home town – Seve became involved in a clubhouse altercation with José María Zamora, a European Tour tournament director who happened to be playing at the tournament, and who at the Madeira Open last year had the temerity to justify two slow play warnings against Seve.
Anyone who followed Seve in the glorious old days when he could still play golf, and wasn’t suffering so much from a crippling back injury, knows he is anything but a slow player, so it’s understandable he would have become upset at being accused of one of the cardinal sins of modern golf.
And he was even angrier later that year when the Tour fined and severely reprimanded him for refusing to accept a slow-play penalty at the Italian Open, calling officials the “PGA mafia” and accusing the chief referee of victimising him.
But that’s just Seve being Seve.
The latest incident could prove to be more serious: the British press has suggested he is facing a one-year ban from the Tour – an unprecedented punishment, especially for someone who dragged the Tour out of the third division in the 1980s and provided the sort of charisma that is seriously lacking today (except for a handful of players such as García and Poulter).
Zamora reported the incident to the Tour, when it might have been better to leave it as a personal dispute, and now Seve’s fate is in the hands of people he has been at sometimes-bitter odds with for several years.
But there was also a tournament unfolding at Valderrama. Overnight leader by three, Forsyth surprised many by staying in the hunt till the final hole. A typically aggressive Poulter took the initiative on the front nine but García, also three shots adrift of Forsyth at the start of the day but playing in the penultimate pairing, recovered from a mediocre start to take the clubhouse lead on seven-under-par 277 – missing a one and a half metre putt for birdie on the 18th that, as it turned out, would have been enough to give him the title.
Forsyth, one behind playing partner Poulter and García on the 18th tee, needed to hole out from the greenside bunker to make the play-off, and missed by two metres. Poulter missed his birdie putt from four metres and it was sudden-death.
Neither player was particularly virtuoso in reaching the 10th green (first extra hole) but it took the Spaniard one extra stroke to do so and they both took two off the fringe, leaving Poulter as the third English champion in the tournament’s 17-year history, after Nick Faldo in the inaugural year at Valderrama and Lee Westwood in 1997 at Montecastillo.
Twenty-eight-year-old Poulter had had to wait till the final event of the season to continue his run of at least one victory every year since joining the Tour in 2000, when he was the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year.
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