It is 15-years ago Garda Golf in the north of the country last hosted an Italian Open.
Having first reported on the Italian Open in 1990 at Monza I recall my delight in being at Garda Golf for a second occasion and again admiring the beauty of the region and with the golf couse commanding glorious views of the Lake Garda.
And what I vividly remember is the events of Saturday May 3rd and the third day of the then 60th Italian Open.
A few of us decided to venture into nearby Brescia for some sight-seeing ahead of the third round leaders teeing-off early afternoon.
Seve Ballesteros had teed-off just before 8am local time and it was later in the morning when my colleague, Norman Dabell got a phone call from the then Tour press officer, Scott Crockett and while were in the taxi taking us to the course that there was an issue involving the Spaniard and that he was being disqualified.
Seve Ballesteros and John Pararmor in rules discussion during a Volvo PGA at Wentworth.
Ballesteros was disqualified after signing for a 75 but refusing to add a penalty stroke for two breaches of the pace-of-play regulations and what also would be a resultant £500 fine.
Chief referee John Paramor claimed Ballesteros and French playing partner Gregory Havret were between eight and 14 minutes behind schedule.
At the 14th, he said: ‘Ballesteros took 64 seconds instead of a permitted 50 over his tee shot and at the 16th 51 seconds instead of 40, whereupon Paramor told him he faced an automatic one-shot penalty.
Havret entered a par five on the Spaniards card for the 16th but Ballesteros defiantly rubbed it out, replaced with a birdie four and signed his card.
He declared: ‘I’ll only sign for the strokes I took – go ahead and DQ me.’
Paramor explained: “I had no option. It’s upsetting when it’s your hero, but the players make the rules and we apply them.”
What followed was nothing short of bizarre and it is why I still remember the incident to this day.
Ballesteros called an ‘unofficial’ press conference and while speaking much in his native toungue the golfing legend used a word that sounded like ‘dictator’ in speaking of then European Tour Executive Director, Ken Scholfield.
It prompted Norman (Dabell) to stop Seve and clarify if he had called Scholfied a ‘dictator’ as we all thought and with Seve confirming this and also describing the Tour’s relationship with IMG as ‘nearly like the Mafia’.
Three years earlier, Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer and Jose Maria Olazabal were labelled golf’s ‘gang of four’ when they called for an investigation into the Tour’s business and financiall affairs.
It led for Ballesteros to claim at Garda Golf he was being ‘picked on’ because of that.
The then 46-year old Ballesteros used the impromtu press conference to also claim the Seve Trophy – a Ryder Cup-style competition between teams from Europe and Great Britain and Ireland – would not survive because Schofield was against it as the Tour “don’t have any piece of the cake.”
Ballesteros clearly felt the issues raised by ‘The Gang of Four’ had not been forgotten by the Tour as the Tour had stated and that his disqualification was all down to being `against the system.’
“It’s a personal problem from the past,” Ballesteros said. “It’s a war and this is the continuation of that.”
Woh! Dynamite stuff and certain back-page news for the UK Sunday editions.
Forget about the fact Argentina’s Ricardo Gonzalez was leading the tournament before Sweden’s Mathias Gronberg would come from three shots back the next day to win the event.
No, it was all about Seve’s outburst and sitting there in the front row just feet from the five-time Majors’ winning Spaniard was one of the more dramatic press conferences I can say I’ve attended.
Three weeks later Ballesteros attended a Mark James chaired Tournament Players Committee meeting at Wentworth, and ahead of the Volvo PGA Championship, where he was fined an undisclosed sum and duly reprimanded for his Italian Open actions.
Ballesteros then withdrew from the event complaining of the flu while a few months later he also withdrew, but without reason, from The Open.
Four years later at the 2007 Open Championship at Carnoustie, and where The Open is headed this year, Seve formally announced his retirement from golf and then four years later on, and at the young age of just 54, he passed away.
