"These people are crazy, eh?"

Thanks to reader Peter for Bill Elliott's anecdote-rich tribute to Seve Ballesteros.

The first of those Masters wins came the following spring. By now he was an acknowledged phenomenon. He played golf like we all did, spraying the ball hither and thither, but, unlike us, he then recovered brilliantly. We loved him for his vulnerability. He brought a passion to golf that it never had before and has not enjoyed since. He made this stuffy old game seem sexy and exciting, so that men yearned to be him and women simply wanted to be with him. He was the godfather of the modern European Tour, moving the interest from golf lovers to general sports fans and non-sports-fans alike, and encouraging serious money into the game.

Before that 1980 Masters began I watched from the clubhouse at Augusta as he finished a practice round, several thousand fans embroidering the scene. It took him ages to make his way through the punters to the clubhouse and when he finally made it he looked at me and gave a huge grin. He held out his hand and when I held out mine he dropped several scraps of paper into it and laughed. Each contained a girl's name and a phone number. 'These people are crazy, eh?' he said. His English was much better by then.