Dubai: Double Major winner Jose Maria Olazabal spoke of his emotion after pairing off with Javier Ballesteros, the son of late Spanish legend Seve, at Emirates Golf Club on Tuesday.
Amateur invite Javier, 23, was representing his late father Seve in a special Omega Dubai Desert Classic 25th anniversary Champions’ Challenge match involving all 21 past winners ahead of this weekend’s main event, which starts on Thursday.
Javier shot two-over par 74 in the 18-hole $600,000 exhibition alongside 1998 and 2010 event winning Spaniards Olazabal and Miguel Angel Jimenez, who both made par. Seve won here in 1992.
Olazabal, 47, was close friends with Seve up until his death in 2011, aged 53, after battling with brain cancer and said he could see a lot of the past star in Javier.
“It was a little bit emotional,” said Olazabal. “Especially on the first tee. Obviously when I saw Javier I saw Seve and was emotional in that moment, especially because he reminds me a lot of his father. I could see a lot of signs of Seve on the golf course with him.”
Asked if we could be seeing another Ballesteros turning professional and playing on the European Tour soon, Olazabal said Javier, who made four bogies and two birdies, still had improvements to make.
“His short game is good,” said Olazabal. “He hit a couple of good boundary shots and a couple of chips close to the hole, so his putting seems to be pretty solid.
“But he really needs to improve. He was quite erratic off the tee today. He is concentrating on his studies at the moment and he has another year and-a-half studying law in Madrid. After that we will see. Obviously, he needs to put some length on if he wants to try and get on the tour but the short part of his game was solid.”
