Seve Ballesteros, 1957–2011

Playing the last round of the 1979 British Open, Seve Ballesteros hit his drive on the 16th hole into an unpaved parking lot. From there, he pitched his second shot onto the green, then sank a 20-foot putt for a birdie. But this wasn’t one of Ballesteros’s patented improvised rescues. He had deliberately aimed his drive at the parking lot. Two holes later, he won his first British Open, defeating Jack Nicklaus by three strokes.

Severiano Ballesteros was born into a golfing family in Pedreña, Spain, said The New York Times. His three elder brothers were pros, as was his uncle. He won his first tournament, a caddy championship, at age 12. Turning pro at age 16, he burst onto the international stage three years later at the 1976 British Open. On the final hole, he found himself short of the green, with two sand dunes blocking his path to the flag. He produced a chip shot that somehow tiptoed between the dunes and rolled to within two feet of the cup. He finished tied with Nicklaus for second.

Tall, dark, and handsome, Ballesteros could play a power game when it was called for, said the London Independent. He was one of the first to routinely hit his drives over a dogleg, rather than take one shot to reach the corner and another to advance the ball down the fairway. But he also had a delicate touch around the greens that redeemed his often-errant tee shots. “It doesn’t matter where you hit the drive if you make the putt,” he liked to say.

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After back trouble forced him into retirement, Ballesteros threw himself into captaining the European squad of the Ryder Cup, the tournament pitting America’s best against Europe’s all-stars. As captain, he led Europe to victory in 1997, seeming to appear at his players’ sides whenever they faced a crucial shot. Two of his Spanish teammates, José María Olazábal and Miguel Ángel Jiménez, were finishing their rounds at the Spanish Open this week when they learned that Ballesteros was losing his long battle with brain cancer. Visibly distraught, they were unable to speak to reporters.