{"id":20620,"date":"2013-04-10T08:27:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T08:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/a-tournament-pays-tribute-to-seve-on-the-day-of-his-birth\/"},"modified":"2013-04-10T08:27:50","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T08:27:50","slug":"a-tournament-pays-tribute-to-seve-on-the-day-of-his-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/a-tournament-pays-tribute-to-seve-on-the-day-of-his-birth\/","title":{"rendered":"A tournament pays tribute to Seve on the day of his birth"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The National Golf Center celebrated yesterday, the birthday of the great Cantabrian champion, its \u201cSeve Ballesteros Foundation Challenge\u201d tournament, in which all the participants paid tribute to him and remembered his figure. Javier, Seve\u2019s eldest son, presided over the prize-giving ceremony together with Gonzaga Escauriaza, president of the Royal Spanish Golf Federation; Juan Jos\u00e9 Villanueva, president of the Panama Golf Group; and Roberto Eduardo Arango, ambassador of the Republic of Panama in Spain. <\/span><\/p>\n

Javier Ballesteros, Enrique Ponce, Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Guti\u00e9rrez \u201cGuti\u201d, Pep\u00edn Liria, Lorenzo Rico, Cecilio Alonso, Francis Lorenzo, Carlos Alonso Santillana, Ver\u00f3nica Mengod, Blanca Fern\u00e1ndez Ochoa, Luis Alfonso de Borb\u00f3n, Juan Enrique Estebaranz, Jos\u00e9 Luis Cap\u00f3n, Ricardo L\u00f3pez Felipe\u2026 took part in this event, among others.<\/p>\n

Many players who have gathered at the National Golf Center had the \u201cprivilege\u201d of playing alongside Seve and others, although they did not know him personally, were initiated in this sport \u201cthanks to Seve\u201d. The figure of the champion has been praised and remembered by all on such an important date: \u201cSeve was pure passion, imagination, sensitivity, competitiveness, magic, winning mentality\u2026 He changed the rules of the game and taught us to love golf. All of us who are here started playing trying to imitate him because he did something different and very attractive. He transmitted his passion to us and got us hooked on golf,\u201d declared the participants unanimously at the end of the round. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Enrique Ponce: \u201cI played with Seve many times in Madrid, Bilbao, Sancti Petri, Pedre\u00f1a\u2026 It was a privilege to be with him: the simple fact of seeing him with a club in his hands and giving those courageous strokes that only he knew how to give, is something I will never forget. I learned many things from him. I was struck by his simplicity, humanity, fighting spirit and courage; nothing frightened him, neither on the golf course nor in life, and he was unique in getting out of complicated situations. Severiano transmitted a very valuable virtue for which he always stood out: self-confidence. When you were by his side, he made you believe in what you were capable of\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00c1ngel Acha won first prize in the Scratch category with 40 points, displaying the magnificent level of play that a few weeks ago earned him the title of Spanish University Champion; Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00f3n Chico and Juan Carlos Velayos were the best by Handicap, in first and second category respectively; Lola Fern\u00e1ndez Ochoa was proclaimed champion among the Ladies; and Agust\u00edn Mill\u00e1n was the Senior winner.<\/p>\n

After thanking \u201call the camps in Spain and Panama that have joined the \u201cChallenge\u201d and those of you who have joined me today to remember our father\u201d, <\/span>Javier Ballesteros<\/span>on behalf of his siblings <\/span>Miguel and Carmen<\/span>on behalf of his siblings Miguel and Carmen, presented two sculptures of \u201cSeve\u2019s hands\u201d to the Panama Golf Group. <\/span>Panama Golf Group<\/span>the sponsor of the \u201cSeve Ballesteros Foundation Challenge\u201d and was represented by its president <\/span>Juan Jos\u00e9 Villanueva<\/span> and the board members <\/span>Arturo Sainz and Jaime Carrizo<\/span>who have been visibly moved to receive it from the son of their \u201cidol\u201d; and to <\/span>Gonzaga Escauriaza<\/span>The President of the Royal Spanish Golf Federation, who thanked him, emphasizing that \u201cthe most important thing about Severiano, even more important than his many trophies, was the passion he knew how to instill in the spectators who began to approach golf thanks to him, and who he made live the tournaments with the same intensity as he lived them. That has made him unique. The \u201cSeve\u2019s hands\u201d, the work of sculptor Juan Soler, are made of bronze and are numbered pieces of an edition of 555, which commemorated the 50th birthday of the champion. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Seve Ballesteros Foundation is carrying out this year the third edition of the \u201cDesaf\u00edo\u201d: a series of charity golf tournaments taking place all over Spain and in five courses in Panama, with the aim of raising funds that will go to cancer research. Also collaborating are: Hugo Boss, the Royal Spanish Golf Federation, A\u00f1oreta Golf, the Consejo Superior de Deportes and the Fundaci\u00f3n Deporte y Desaf\u00edo. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Golf Center celebrated yesterday, the birthday of the great Cantabrian champion, its \u201cSeve Ballesteros Foundation Challenge\u201d tournament, in which all the participants paid tribute to him and remembered his figure. Javier, Seve\u2019s eldest son, presided over the prize-giving ceremony together with Gonzaga Escauriaza, president of the Royal Spanish Golf Federation; Juan Jos\u00e9 Villanueva, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}