Paul Lewis: An artist's colourful legacy

In the rather good movie of 2010, The Special Relationship, which traces UK PM Tony Blair's interaction with embattled US President Bill Clinton, much is made of the word 'legacy'.

The concept was one Blair was acutely aware of anyway but, in the movie, Clinton tells Blair he must build his legacy so he is remembered well in history.

Of course, Clinton's legacy was a little blue dress and all that surrounded it, while Blair's legacy will not be the economic growth he presided over - but the sham/shameful pretext for the invasion of Iraq.

That sprang to mind after Seve Ballesteros' moving funeral on Thursday - the world of golf farewelling a favourite son. A day later, Tiger Woods made his return to the US PGA circuit in the TPC at Sawgrass.

If we are talking legacy, Ballesteros left one. It's not quite so certain that Tiger Woods will ... or, rather, it's not yet certain exactly what his legacy will be.

It's hard to think of a more popular golfer than Seve, the greatest I have ever seen. Not the best, necessarily. Jack Nicklaus and Woods - pre-drama Woods, anyway - might take that title.

Both are the most prolific title winners in golf behind Sam Snead and they were/are imposing athletes; with intimidating mental strength, skill and focus and snatches of brilliance.

But Seve, ah, Seve was an artist. In sport, records are the stuff of greatness, true. But true greatness is when statistics and records are subsumed by the sheer artistry and genius of a player. Both terms could be applied to Ballesteros.

But even that doesn't explain why he was so immensely popular, especially (but not exclusively) outside the US.

Part of the answer is that Seve was of the people; his story famously starting with a makeshift three-iron club given to him by his older brother - with which he used to hit rocks on the beach as if they were golf balls.

Another part is that he played balls-out, as they say. He attacked, and damn the torpedoes. He was what every golfer wanted to be.

His genius was flawed, too, which made him all the more beloved. One moment, he might commit an error of weekend hacker class.

The next, he would invent a shot that had not only never been seen before, it had never even been thought of before - and he would hit the ball out of the rough or the hazard or whatever and put it on the green.

That was why he was loved; because he could commit the sin of the ordinary and achieve salvation with the brilliant. The most famous was his British Open win at Royal Lytham in 1979 - where he miscued into the car park.

Then followed half an hour of chaos as the volatile Spaniard masterminded the shifting of the cars before he played out of the tufty grass and the gravel, sending the ball close enough to the flag for the birdie that won him the title at 22. That was Seve - the ridiculous followed by the sublime.

Perhaps the best description of his prowess came recently in a tribute from Phil Mickelson, the golfer who most closely parallels Seve these days.

"The first time we played [together], we played at Torrey Pines, and the 11th hole is a par-three there and the pin was back right and he would take a three-iron that was normally a five or six-iron shot and carve a three-iron, a big 30 to 50-yard rounded slice that would land in the middle of the green and then side spin over to the hole.

"It just opened my eyes how many different ways you can get to some of these pins. The fact that you couldn't go right at the hole and stop it, he found a different way to come in sideways and get the ball close," Mickelson said.

"I loved watching that because it showed me that it's possible that you can do it, that it doesn't have to be this robotic way of fairways, middle of the green and so forth. You can get to some of these pins that are challenging and make it fun."

The appreciation was mutual. Ballesteros named his dog Phil following Mickelson's Masters victory last year.

Someone once said that, for Seve, the impossible was an everyday thing. There were many examples - the 1983 Ryder Cup, where he played an impossible three wood from a bunker with a bad lie. He put it on the green 245 yards away. A watching Nicklaus said it was the best shot he had ever seen.

There was the 1993 Euro Masters in Switzerland where he hit a ball to within a few feet of a wall. He had to play out sideways. He couldn't play forward. Couldn't he, hell. The genius in him saw something no one else could - an impossibly tiny gap between tree branches and the top of the wall.

He played a full-blooded wedge through this microscopic aperture - and made birdie. The Swiss were so gobsmacked, they promptly erected on the spot a rock with a plaque on it, marking the shot.

I had my own moment with Seve in 1979, a few weeks before his first Open victory. On a Berkshire course, I had flogged my ball into the trees and was unhappily searching for it.

I saw a figure, on his own walking up the next fairway. In an instant, I could see it was Ballesteros. He too had gone into the trees opposite. He strode up to his ball, barely breaking stride, addressed it and hit a huge, curving slice onto the green. I watched with open mouth. The genius of the man. I went back to searching for my ball. Never found it.

He wasn't perfect - he could be moody, quick-tempered and sometimes egotistical - but he uttered one of the best quotes ever heard in sports, even though he was occasionally aided by the fact that English was a second language.

He was asked by a reporter to describe his play. Seve shrugged and said: "I miss the hole, I miss the hole, I miss the hole, I hole it."

Somehow, you get the feeling Ballesteros is still holing it somewhere; his legacy how a stodgy old percentage game like golf can be lit up with brilliance.

As for Woods, missing the hole and holing it took on a whole new meaning. His legacy, if he doesn't break Nicklaus' record of 18 majors, just might have more in common with Clinton and the cocktail dress.