"The large crowd outside the church burst into applause as Ballesteros' ashes reached the tiny church, which was filled to its 400-person capacity."
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AP's Paul Logothetis reports on Seve Ballesteros' memorial service.
Ballesteros' oldest son, Javier, carried the urn holding the Spanish golf great's ashes at the front of the procession, with the wail of a single bagpipe punctuating the occasion on an overcast day in the tiny village off the Bay of Santander.
The procession also included several young boys and girls wearing a replica of the navy blue outfit that Ballesteros wore for his first British Open win in 1979. They each held a 3-iron, the first club he used as a child.
Members of a local men's rowing team marched with their oars.
The large crowd outside the church burst into applause as Ballesteros' ashes reached the tiny church, which was filled to its 400-person capacity. Locals, friends and others watched from one of the three giant screens set up outside.
An unbylined European Tour story included this:
The 2012 European Captain José Maria Olazábal, who with Seve formed the greatest partnership in Ryder Cup history, was joined by past Captains Sir Nick Faldo, Bernard Gallacher, Colin Montgomerie, Sam Torrance and Ian Woosnam. Miguel Angel Jiménez and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castaño were among the Spanish contingent with a host of European Tour players past and present who joined family and friends in Seve's hometown.
George O’Grady, Chief Executive of The European Tour, R&A Chief Executive Peter Dawson and his predecessor Sir Michael Bonallack were among those paying their respects.
Getty Images has a library of shots from the service. Thanks to reader Tim for the link.
Tributes continue to come in (or I'm just now reading them), including this from Mitchell Platts:
I recall a breakfast with Seve at the Ritz in London when, with tears in his eyes, he spoke warmly of his parents – his father had now died - and three brothers. He said: “The biggest influence on my life was my parents and probably the surroundings because our house was right there on the golf course (Real Club de Golf de Pedreña). My uncle, Ramon Sota, was also a professional golfer and he was very good.
“My father was always optimistic; he always believed in me. The house had belonged to my mother’s uncle. When we were growing up Baldomero, my eldest brother, had one bedroom, Manuel had another and I shared with Vicente. We were a happy family. We kept cows which my father looked after. He also fished, some for us to eat and some to sell, and he caddied. It seemed that he and my mother were always working.”
Later the tears turned to smiles when he recalled being drunk at the age of 12. He said: “I came home and my father and mother had gone fishing. My lunch had been left and there was a bottle of wine. I had four glasses. It did not go unnoticed when I returned to school; I was sent back home!”
Scott Michaux suggested this as a way to pay tribute to Seve…not that it'll happen, but it might be fun to do once a year.
If the game's leaders wanted to truly honor Seve's memory, they would figure out a way to restore the relevance of his style in an era before players carried five different wedges, several hybrids, long putters and balls designed to combat the elements of spin. It's probably too late to cap the bottle of technology, but maybe something as simple as reducing the number of clubs in the bag from 14 to 11 would require today's elite players to learn how to do more with less the way Ballesteros could.
Ballesteros’s life ended where it began: in the Cantabrian hamlet of Pedrena, along the rock-edged, turquoise shores of the Bay of Santander, where he was raised.
“The funeral rites will be as simple as those for any neighbor from the village,” his brother Baldomero said. “Seve is a country boy. We thought it was best.”
It’s a simpler and somewhat rougher part of Spain’s coast, not as traveled as the southern Mediterranean, but ancient and splendidly beautiful even so, wild with energy, and suggestive of just what an epic act of self-fashioning his career was. His essence, surely, is there.
