Luisa and Celestino named the sixth of their seven children Antonio. It was the 1940s and the Garrido family lived in the Madrid neighborhood of Aravaca in a house with no rooms and leaks. The children did not go to school. Each member of the clan managed to bring something to the table. The father was a bricklayer. The mother cleaned. Little Antonio discovered golf.
“I came out of necessity. And it was that need that made me a golfer ”, remembers Antonio Garrido, at 77, while sipping a chamomile at the Villa de Madrid Country Club. Where it all started. “We were 200 children between the ages of 10 and 14 working here, taking the sticks to the men. And Manolo Piñero, José María Cañizares and I left. How? We were hungry. If I took money home, it was welcome, because one day you ate and another day you didn’t. More than once there was nothing to put in the mouth. That has to be said, huh? It is not bad. How difficult it must be for a mother and father that their children cannot eat. My mother used to go to the restaurants to clean in the kitchen and the leftovers of the gentlemen is what we ate at home, ”he revives. Thus, making of shopping cart, playing secretly, at night, because they did not have permission, he began a career whose successes are written in sweat: five titles on the European circuit from 1972 to 1986, winner of the 1977 World Cup with Severiano Ballesteros, 24th at the 1978 British Open, and little recognized pride, even by himself. Seve and Garrido were the first Spanish golfers, and not British, who represented Europe in the Ryder Cup. The great biennial duel against the United States did not open its doors to players from outside the islands until 1979, as a result of Ballesteros’ efforts. And on Friday, September 14 of that year, in the morning, on hole one of the White Sulfur Springs course, in West Virginia (USA), Luisa and Celestino’s sixth child made history.
The story has changed so much that in the Ryder that begins next week, in Wisconsin, a Spaniard, Jon Rahm, commands Europe as number one in the world. The Basque does not know Garrido personally, but, a lover of golf history as he is, he would enjoy listening to the life of someone who, led the way by the essential Seve, led the way.
“You have to tell where we come from. With my little money I was able to buy a white Vespa. For me it was like a Mercedes. I remember going with her from Madrid to Malaga to caddy for a man. I left home at six in the morning. I arrived at eight at night. In February. Died of cold. The man was driving. And as a player, with the Vespa I was going, with Valentín Gutiérrez also up, to do the northern route, tournaments in Santander, Bilbao, Gijón and France. The truth is that that bike turned out very good … Once we returned home, at the end of August, hungry. We stopped at a house to ask where we could eat something and the woman saw such a face that she put us in for breakfast. They were hard times, but I was very happy, ”says Garrido.
That shared need made the golfers of his generation a family. Some helped others. They traveled together, shared expenses, cried or laughed shoulder to shoulder. They even earned a nickname that time has given tennis: The army. “Those were us!”, Claims Garrido, and explains the origin: “Year 1977. We Spaniards won eight or nine tournaments. I won two, Manolo Piñero, Seve, Manuel Ramos … And I think it was Mercedes Milá who called us that. Later it has been used for tennis players, but the real Navy we were the golfers of the seventies”.
Above all of them would emerge Severiano Ballesteros, the genius, the promoter of the Ryder as it is known today, a clash of giants between Europe and the United States. That 1979, Seve was 22 years old. Garrido, 35. “He was the engine. And being so young … he behaved like a leader, a whirlwind. I was 13 years older than him. We had won the ’77 World Championship together, he with 19 or 20, and you could see that he was a phenomenon. If he was giving me advice all the time! That I was not older, but much older than him. That’s how Seve was. People said to me: ‘But how does Seve behave like this already, that he seems to give you lessons?’ It was without malicious intent. He ate the world, he lived for golf. The phenomena are born like this. Djokovic reminds me of him, that character that breaks rackets because he loses, that eagerness … ”.
Without seeing mom die
Seve and Garrido opened the ’79 Ryder by playing the fourballs (each player with his ball) against the American couple Wadkins-Nelson. 2 & 1 fell (two holes ahead with one to be played). According to the video files consulted by Antonio Sándeto, author of the book See you in two years On Ryder’s history, Garrido was the first non-Briton to hit a ball for Europe. The Spanish couple beat Zoeller-Green in the afternoon 3 & 2 in foursomes (one ball per pair). And they lost again in Saturday’s appointments and Sunday’s singles. The United States won emphatically (17-11), but a new era had begun.
“Playing with Seve a Ryder was special. People were eager to see him play. He was cheering me on all the time. They welcomed us Spaniards very well, there was a good union, although I knew English that way. It was another world, something that I had never experienced. What surprised me the most is that when we arrived in the United States, they took each of us to the hotel, we were going with our wives, and after 10 minutes there was a knock on the door, I open and the television cameras pop in to do interviews there . That blew me away ”.
When he looks back, Antonio Garrido does not want to remember the bad. “It’s life,” he repeats. It hurts him especially not to have been present when his mother passed away. He was playing a tournament in Argentina. He learned of the death when he returned. Today she smiles with her seven grandchildren. Some are taught to play golf. But he doesn’t tell them who his grandfather was. The golfer, son of a bricklayer, who was riding a Vespa and came to the Ryder.
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