Manuel Shares Memories at Seve ProAm

Olazabal and Jimenez at Seve Pro Am

Manuel Ballesteros broke down in tears as some of golf's biggest names turned up at Wentworth on Monday to pay tribute to his late brother Severiano.

Manuel was an experienced professional himself and had already won in Europe when his younger brother burst on to the scene in the mid-1970s.

However, Ballesteros senior put his own career to one side in order to help Seve, who died earlier this month at the age of 54 after a two-year battle with brain cancer, start on the road to greatness.

"I have so much history with Seve, more than his nephews, more than my other two brothers, more than the rest of the family," 61-year-old Manuel said.

"I used to travel with him on the circuit, I shared a room with him, practised with him. I was there with him when he won all five of his majors, apart from the 1983 US Masters.

"He was the most charismatic player, the player with the most genius. But I have lost my brother, not a golfing genius, and he was someone I was very proud of," said a tearful Manuel as he made his way up the hill leading to the iconic Wentworth clubhouse.

Ryder Cup captain Jose Maria Olazabal, eight-times European number one Colin Montgomerie, U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell, Retief Goosen, Paul Casey, Justin Rose and Ross Fisher were among the competitors in Monday's 'Ole Seve' pro-am.

All funds raised from the event were in aid of the Seve Ballesteros Foundation and Cancer Research UK.

Manuel, who won twice during his professional career, paid an especially warm tribute to Seve's former Ryder Cup partner Olazabal.

"He and Seve were very good friends."

Manuel revealed he had serious health problems of his own shortly before his brother's death.

"I had heart surgery 15 days before he died," said the 61-year-old. "I feel better but I still feel some pain and I take tablets to help.

"I have nothing artificial round my heart but I feel lucky to be alive. I said before the surgery, 'Don't tell Seve because he has enough on his mind', but someone from the family told him and he was crying, crying, crying.

"I'm not angry but I was upset by that."

His eyes lit up though when he looked back fondly at Seve's early days on tour.

"He was 17 when he started and I was 25," Manuel explained. "I had already been playing tournaments for seven years in Europe so I did everything for him, booked his air tickets, accommodation, everything off the course, so that nobody would bother him.

"All he needed to concentrate on was practice, practice, practice and playing, playing, playing."

Manuel said his handsome young brother was always destined to be a top golfer.

Asked if he knew Seve would one day be the world number one, he replied: 'No, not really - who can be sure that his own brother can be the best player in the world?

"I knew he was going to be a really good player but I never imagined he could win five majors. I am no god but I knew at that age he was going to be one of the best, at least in Europe."

All The Fun May End in Tweers....

Ian Poulter

It all started off as a bit of fun between a group of golfers - Ian Poulter, Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell and Lee Westwood - providing for the most part good banter and jokes for following fans. Along with some valuable quotes for journalists which more often than not end up as newspaper quotes. 

But now the experiences of other sports have crept in as the negative element of Twitter threatens to claim another casualty as world number one, Westwood, is suggesting he will close his account. The change of mind comes after some abusive messages which has left the Worksop professional somewhat baffled. 

“It’s a shame people can’t distinguish between abuse and banter,’ said Westwood, who has more than 200,000 followers. ‘It’s supposed to be social media not social slagging and it’s losing its meaning. It’s pathetic, the way people are spoiling it.’ 

Graeme McDowell currently has 160,000 followers and explained his experince. ‘I’d say there’s three per cent nastiness and some of them are downright evil,’ he said. ‘I think they call them “trolls”. 

In Twitter, or Internet speak, a troll is someone who posts off-topic messages in an online community, with the primary intent of provoking response. 

As McDowell acknowledges “What you can’t do is humour them. But I think if you want to use Twitter as a tool to interact with the real fans, you have to accept there will be a few sad cases.’ 

Former Open champion Paul Lawrie closed his account last year, albeit for different reasons, fed up after both his Facebook and Twitter accounts were hacked into. 

In the golf world the interaction between the younger golfers had become legendary with a number of them also dedicating time to answering fans queries and questions - when flight delays at airports permitted. In one of those instances, Rory McIlory clarified enquiries about his car with a photo of the vehicle parked in his garage after it had been incorrectly reported that the Holywood golfer had splashed out on a Bugatti Veyron worth some $2 million. 

However McIlroy used his Twitter account to discount the claims describing them as "utter rubbish". 

During the Ryder Cup at The Celtic Manor last autumn team Captain Colin Montgomerie allowed the players use Twitter and during various times of the four days the players shared photos and videos of events backstage, much to the delight of fans worldwide. 

At the time McDowell, explained that Montgomerie's position came after Europe's captain had asked his team not to use the social networking site. 

"Monty doesn't want to go banning Twitter," McDowell said. "We are all adults. It goes without saying that we are not going to say something that would unduly affect our team or give any strategy or secrets or tactics away. 

"He trusts us obviously not to do anything too stupid out there. There's been some pretty famous mistakes made in Twitter in the past few months. We are not banned. But I don't think we'll be going crazy on it, either." 

Montgomerie's reticence followed the tweet by England cricketer, Kevin Pietersen, who commented sarcastically on the social network after he was informed that he had been dropped. In doing so the batsman joined a number of athletes to find themselves caught out by the social networking site and had to issue a clarification as a result. 

For Ian Poulter it was weeks after the event that he found himself at the centre of unwanted attention after he uploaded a video showing breakfast being eaten out of the Samuel Ryder trophy with his children. In the short clip, Poulter can be heard saying to the camera “This is breakfast with the Ryder cup', before tipping the cereal into the trophy, pouring over milk and eating it in his kitchen. 

For many it was a step too far, even for the unorthodox English golfer, and was viewed by some  as disrespectful. 

In reality the enduring nature of Twitter is something that is becoming increasingly tested, despite many fans becoming addicted to the sometimes mundane news updates of sports people and celebrities. But in recent months, and indeed weeks, there are increasing instances of information making it to the airwaves that would not meet the basic editorial guidelines of quality news publications. 

It started last January when former Liverpool player Ryan Babel apologised for comments he made about referee Howard Webb in the aftermath of Liverpool's FA Cup exit to Manchester United. The footballer had used his Twitter account to post a mocked-up picture of Webb wearing a United shirt, after the World Cup official awarded the home side a first-minute penalty and sent off Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard. 

The result was Ryan Babel accepted a charge of improper conduct from the Football Association. 

On Friday Sir Alex Ferguson added his thoughts to the Twitter argument confirming that the club were looking at how best to solve the problems after Wayne Rooney became embroiled in recent days in some very negative tweets from followers 

Teammate Darron Gibson closed his account within two hours after receiving largescale abuse some weeks ago. 

“I don’t understand it to be honest with you,” said Ferguson . “I don’t know why anybody can be bothered with that kind of stuff. How do you find the time to do that? There are a million things you can do in your life without that. 

“Get yourself down to the library and read a book. Seriously. It is a waste of time. 

“It seems to have a certain momentum at the moment. Everyone seems to want to do it.”

Business as Usual at Lough Erne Resort

Lough Erne Resort

Jonathan Stapleton General Manager at Lough Erne Resort has said:

"Effectively Castle Hume Leisure Limited who owns Lough Erne Resort that has gone into administration, not Lough Erne Resort itself."

Lough Erne Resort has been trading prosperously for the last year and will continue to do so, therefore it is business as usual for The Resort, it's dedicated staff and valued guests, which means that our customers can be assured of our continued commitment to delivering the very highest standards of service and attention to detail at all times, for which Lough Erne Resort has become renowned both domestically and internationally."

"I just want to assure everyone that it is business as usual at Lough Erne Resort and that we are all committed more than ever to delivering excellence for which we are renowned."

On Thursday John Hansen and Stuart Irwin of KPMG, where appointed joint administrators of Castle Hume Leisure Limited. 

He said: "It is our intention to continue trading and keep this outstanding resort open for 'business as usual' including weddings and all other bookings. The joint administrators will seek to find a new owner. However, in the meantime it is our intention to keep the business open and indeed drive the business forward at every opportunity."

"On the issue of jobs at the resort, he said: "It is early in the Administration process, but our intention at present is to keep the workforce intact. We will keep all matters under review in the coming days and weeks."

The administrators have appointed an experienced hotel operator to assist them in the ongoing management of the resort. Mr Hansen said this could enable it to continue trading, meet current bookings and reservations and to secure future bookings.

"Given the great location and our stated intentions we hope that people will continue to book and our immediate objective is to secure operations, honour bookings and work with the existing staff. We will look at selling the resort in due course," he concluded.

Faldo and Monty Want Seve Logo

Colin Montgomerie and Sir Nick Faldo have added their names to the campaign to have the image of the late Seve Ballesteros on the logo of the European Tour.

The logo is currently a silhouette of Harry Vardon - Open champion a record six times between 1896 and 1914 - but the two Ryder Cup captains gave their views after attending today's funeral in Spain.

''I think you will find it does change and let's hope it is sooner rather than later,'' said Montgomerie. ''I would vote for that immediately.''When you talk about the European Tour you talk about Seve and I think it's only right he should appear on our logo.''Montgomerie described the funeral service as ''very sad and moving, but after this mournful day we have to start to celebrate his life''.

Faldo, who flew from America to London in time to join a private jet to Spain organised by the European Tour, added: ''I think they (the Tour) would have a very difficult time not changing the logo.

''From day one I said to George (Tour executive director George O'Grady) 'Come on - we are not 110-year-old golfers'.''There will never be another Seve. He had everything - the good looks, the charisma, the smile, the walk and the swashbuckling golf game.

''We shared lots of battles and it's tragic. We would have been mates and we've lost out on that. We always had mutual respect, but we never realised the level of feelings that we had for each other.''

Adios Seve....Que Descances en Paz

"Seve Ballesteros goes after a golf course the way a lion goes after a zebra."

Jim Murray Los Angeles Times