John Rahm has a new appointment with glory, it will be from 8:34 p.m. Spanish time in the tee from hole 1 of the historic Brookline Country Club, probably the most iconic place in the history of North American golf.
Rahm fight for the tenth major of Spanish golf in one of the sweetest moments of this sport, which already exceeds 285,000 players in our country. The growth is due, in part, to the effect that Barrika has produced in recent years. On this very special Sunday, we remember the nine great victories of national golf.
1979 Seve Ballesteros. The Open Championship en Royal Lytham
In Spain there were just over 15,000 golf players, of whom 250 were professionals. In that summer of 1979 it sounded strong Gloria of Umberto Tozzi y Raffaella Carr devastated the mythical To make love well you have to come to the south. It will be precisely a boy from the north named Severiano Ballesteros The one who, at only 22 years old, managed to beat the best in the best tournament in the world. In Spain no one knew what the Open was, only in Pedrea, in the club shop, one of Seve’s friends, in conference with England, loudly narrated everything that his interlocutor was telling him about the broadcast of the match. BBC.
1980 Seve Ballesteros. Augusta Masters
April 13, 1980, Spanish golf sealed another day in history. Seve became the first European player to win the Augusta Masters and at 23 years old the youngest to do so (until the victory of Tiger Woods in 1997 with 21). The Pecos made teenage girls fall in love with tell me about you along with other hits like Aire of Peter Brown o How I love you of Rock Jurado. In Spain, just over 17,000 people played golf and we had just over a thousand professional golfers. He arrived on the last day with a seven-stroke lead. Before starting the tournament I said I was going to win, remember Núria Pastorthe only Spanish journalist who covered that feat of Spanish sport.
1983 Seve Ballesteros. Augusta Masters
Seve started the last day with birdie, eaglepar, birdie. Four under par in the first four holes. “It seemed that Seve was driving a Ferrari while the rest of us were traveling in Chevrolets,” he said. Tom Kite, one of his rivals for that second Spanish green jacket. It was the spring of 1983, Tino Casal made Spain dance with haunted and in our country there were a little more than 23,800 golfers registered at that time. That was the first edition where Augusta National allowed players to compete with their own caddies.. Until then the club imposed its own caddies and they had to be black. Seve’s brilliant start left the world speechless: already on the fourth hole he took three shots to his immediate pursuers.
1984 Seve Ballesteros. The Open Championship en St. Andrews
On the eve of the Los Angeles Olympics, the most iconic victory of a Spaniard in a major. Seve won at the birthplace of golf, at the Old Course at St. Andrews. In the summer of 1984 in Spain they continued to dance zombie-style to the rhythm of the Thriller of Michael Jackson, golf had 25,639 federates and Seve arrived at the British with good feelings. “He is playing very well,” commented his then-girlfriend Carmen Botn to the few journalists posted to Scotland. The history of this Open was perfectly immortalized in its putt in 18, with that gesture that the photographer David Cannon frozen forever and that it would become its most iconic logo and image. However, TVE viewers were barely able to savor the moment or get to read on the lips of the Cantabrian champion his mythical “La met…, la met…”, since the public channel decided to cut the golf broadcast to connect live with the Uxarte racetrack, where the fourth horse race was starting.
1988 Seve Ballesteros. The Open Championship en Royal Lytham
For the first time in history, the British Open was going to end on Monday and it did so with a peak duel between the Spaniard and the Zimbabwean player Nick Price culminating in the fifth and final major by Seve Ballesteros. In Spain there were more than 40,000 golf players, Gabinete Caligari put us Soria Road and the teenagers danced to the hits of Rick Astley. At the age of 31 he would achieve his last big one. The physical problems had already appeared and, although during that week Seve managed to offer one of the greatest shows in memory, he would no longer come close to victory in a Grand Slam tournament. Viewers were able to see the historic victory live thanks to the constant connections from TVE.
1994 Jos M Olazbal. Masters de Augusta
In April 1994 Bruce Springsteen He moved us with his streets of philadelphia and Augusta National showed up with the greenes more complicated than they remember. So much so that the German Bernhard Langer, winner the previous year, claimed he had “never seen greens so hard for four days.” After two days of leadership Larry MizeJosé María Olazbal, at the age of 28, was poised to become the second Spaniard to wear the green jacket. On the eve of the final round, Olazbal and his manager Sergio Gmez They settled on a bench at the door of the locker room, watching the exits of hole 1 and letting life flow at a slow pace. In Spain there were more than 81,000 golf players.
After the victory, Seve was waiting for him at eleven o’clock at night in the house that the Basque player occupied near the club and would send him a confession full of sincerity and relief. “I will no longer be the only Spaniard to carry the burden of wearing the green jacket. From now on, you have to carry that weight and that honor on your shoulders,” he told her excitedly.
1999 Jos M Olazbal. Masters de Augusta
Only a year after his first green jacket, José María Olazbal lived his hardest moment. The pains in his back and feet began that led him to think about withdrawing in 1995. Hence, Olazbal’s second and last victory in a Grand Slam tournament, the 1999 Masters, would be the most special and emotional triumph. A total of 137,000 players were beginning to make golf a more popular sport. I just want to hug my family, Olazbal burst into tears in the press room, dressed in his second green jacket. Interestingly, at the champion’s coronation ceremony, Olazbal shared the limelight with another Spanish player, Sergio Garcawho managed to be the best player amateur in his first participation in Augusta. In Spain, the catchiest pop of Ella baila sola, Jarabe de Palo or Shakira.
2017 Sergio Garca. Masters of Augusta
It took 18 years for Sergio García, at the age of 37, to achieve his long-awaited first victory in a major. It was at the Augusta Masters, in a peak duel against Justin Rose which was resolved in the tiebreaker. The major most hated and loved by Sergio. The unfortunate comments of the Spaniard in which he criticized Augusta National were already forgotten. because he is a major, if not, he wouldn’t come…, he came to say in the hardest years.
To finish closing the circle, victory would come on the day that Seve Ballesteros would have turned 60. In Spain, already familiar with the rhythms of reggaeton, Luis Fonsi he will end up drilling us with his Slowly and we were approaching the ceiling number of federates with 273,000.
2021 Jon Rahm. US Open
The pandemic had marked our lives and ended so many others. Golf is experiencing a historic boom in our country. We started the year 2021 with 271,000 players and when Rahm started the US Open there were 17,300 more players in Spain, raising the figure to 288,315 federated players. Rahm, after 20 majors As a professional and at the age of 26, he achieved his first victory at the US Open in Torrey Pines. The time difference (9 hours difference) meant that the press could not echo the feat until Tuesday, but the coverage on radio, internet and television was spectacular. Late-night radio shows broadcast the win live until well past two-thirty in the morning, and Rahm was on the Tuesday front pages of all the sports papers.
According to the criteria of
