8 Incredible Seve Photos And The Story Behind Them
In this video, we sit down with David Cannon, golf photographer and author of the new book 'Seve: His Life Through The Lens', to go through 8 incredible photos he has captured of Seve during his career and the story behind them all. David shares some great insight into what Seve was like to photograph and the relationship he had with the great man. We also learn about the new book and what it was like to go through the process of making this book, including getting access to some never-before-seen photos of Seve's family life away from the course.
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00:00 [Music]
00:04 Yeah, number eight. So, you know at Augusta you're not allowed to run.
00:08 I was in my usual afternoon studio, which is from behind the second shot into 13,
00:14 because the light's beautiful on that hole and it's a lovely sunny afternoon.
00:19 And I saw Seve hit the shot. You know, sometimes you look at a player
00:24 and you see the body action afterwards and I thought, "Hmm, there's a chance
00:28 that's gone into the water." And that year, they let the water run fairly shallow.
00:34 But some years it's deep and this year it was particularly shallow,
00:37 so there was a chance of people playing out of the water.
00:39 And I just thought, "There's just a chance that he's got in this water."
00:43 So, you know, doing my Olympic walk, as I call it.
00:46 And I was lucky enough to get across the crossing on 14,
00:49 because that's the other thing, we're outside the ropes at Augusta.
00:52 You can't go inside the ropes. So you can often get caught at
00:55 spectator crossings because players coming through.
00:58 But luckily, right in, got up the back of the groundstands.
01:02 We have a, you know, you can get to the back of the bleachers,
01:06 as they call them in America, through access at the back for media.
01:11 Got there at the top, absolutely out of breath, sweating like a pig.
01:15 And, you know, to see Seve sitting on the bank, getting his shoes and socks off,
01:19 like he's just, you couldn't have written it, really.
01:22 You look at that very, very closely at that sequence.
01:26 Hawkeyes will notice that near the end of it, you'll just see the ball descending,
01:30 rather than it's not coming out.
01:32 They didn't go forward. It went up, but not forward, sadly.
01:36 But it came back at his feet and he had to drop the next one out.
01:39 What a guy to watch, because he'll take these shots on.
01:42 Probably this book would not happen without COVID and lockdown,
01:47 because I wouldn't have had the time to devote to it,
01:51 to get it done in such a short period of time.
01:54 And, you know, obviously I've remained friends with Carmen, his ex-wife,
02:00 but she's always been a really good friend.
02:03 And Javier, because he plays golf, he's met my son.
02:07 They got on quite well.
02:08 And, yeah, we've kept in touch all the time.
02:13 You know, I've often had lunches in London and stuff like this.
02:16 And, you know, 10th anniversary was coming up of his passing.
02:22 And I just saw a chance, an opportunity just to do a book
02:28 that would celebrate his career in pictures, basically.
02:31 And I would not have got this project off the ground
02:36 without the publishers getting interested,
02:38 most of all without the RNA and then the European tour backing me.
02:43 So it's been done in three months.
02:45 And I spent hours going through archives.
02:49 And the Getty archive has been incredible
02:52 because we have got so many collections on there.
02:55 We've got Phil Sheldon's collections on there, Peter Daisley,
02:57 all the guys who were shooting in the 70s and early 80s.
03:02 But I've got pictures that I've used in the book.
03:05 And I've tried to use pictures from other photographers,
03:09 as much, you know, because I think the book is about great images of Seve.
03:14 So we've dug into some other archives and having the help of the RNA
03:18 and then the European tour,
03:20 it's meant that we've been able to afford to buy pictures in from outside.
03:24 And so hopefully it's going to give people a full and lovely view into his life.
03:30 Another thing, of course, is the family have given us access
03:33 to some beautiful family shots.
03:35 I always said that Seve's smile was the most magnetic smile
03:39 I've ever seen in a subject.
03:41 And if you see these, when you see these family pictures,
03:44 which no one's seen other than the family up till now,
03:48 they shine, they literally light up the pages.
03:51 And yeah, what an amazing treat it is to be able to use those pictures.
03:57 I've tried to do what I call a moment in time in each chapter,
04:01 but they're basically my stories behind pictures,
04:04 which are quite fun, I hope, to make it interesting.
04:08 And then Robert's essays as well.
04:09 So there is some good reading in it as well.
04:11 It's not just pictures.
04:13 People loved him.
04:14 Bottom line, that's the way I'd put it.
04:18 People love watching Seve and they love the way he played the game of golf.
04:22 They love this passion.
04:23 They love everything about what he gave to the game of golf.
04:27 And for me, that's the thing that shines so much.
04:32 That actually, we lost the '93 Ryder Cup, but this was on Saturday morning.
04:38 And Seve hadn't been playing very well that year as a whole,
04:43 but again, he's teamed up with Ollie.
04:46 And I think they won the two matches on the Friday,
04:49 and this was the Saturday morning, and they won again.
04:52 And for some reason, Gallagher thought his back wasn't holding up
04:57 or Seve had said to him, you know, he's really struggling with his back
05:01 and he didn't play him in the afternoon.
05:02 And, you know, we lost by one point.
05:06 What can you take from that?
05:09 But the world will never know.
05:12 But that picture, I just love that picture
05:14 because the people in the background, you know,
05:16 they hold a birdie at that moment.
05:17 And yeah, that was Seve.
05:19 That was the reaction you always got.
05:21 Yeah, the whole story is pretty amazing
05:24 because that tournament, put it into context,
05:26 he had just birdied, I think it was six holes in a row.
05:30 Well, certainly from the 13th.
05:31 So 13, 14, 15, 16, five holes he'd birdied in a row.
05:35 And he'd got to within one shot of the lead.
05:38 And he stands on the 18th tee, which is to a slope
05:43 that is really slopey fairway.
05:44 It's a really tough tee shot to stay on the fairway anyway.
05:47 And sure enough, off to the right.
05:51 And I mean, I thought it was going to be out of bounds,
05:57 but it wasn't.
05:58 It was six foot from a concrete wall,
06:00 which surrounds the swimming pool in Crom.
06:04 And I went with him.
06:09 A lot of people just ignored it.
06:11 Even the TV crews ignored it
06:13 because they thought he's only going to chip this out.
06:15 And if you notice, there's not a TV camera in sight.
06:17 There's no video of this shot ever.
06:19 The only video of it is the ball landing
06:22 just short of the green.
06:23 But then he gets on his knees, he's snorting,
06:28 he's kicking the ground.
06:31 Yes, he does, you know, pointing to a gap like that.
06:34 And Billy Foster, his caddy, he told me,
06:38 well, he tells the story probably better than I do.
06:41 But there's a great little YouTube video
06:45 of what Billy said at the time.
06:47 And he reckoned it was the size of a dinner plate,
06:51 the hole that Seve was aiming for.
06:53 And literally, he's almost on his knees.
06:56 He's down there, he's crouching.
06:58 Billy walks by me.
06:59 He's got his bag.
07:00 It's been sent off.
07:01 "Oh, Billy, I'm going for this."
07:02 Billy's been trying to persuade him to chip out
07:05 for the last five minutes.
07:07 And sure enough, there's a big explosion
07:10 of pine needles and everything.
07:12 No, no, I was waiting for the ball
07:13 to hit the concrete wall and come towards me
07:15 because the geometry that it was,
07:17 I thought I could be in quite a bit of danger here
07:18 because the angles are...
07:19 So I was at a right angle to him.
07:22 And just waiting, it was that six seconds,
07:25 whatever, one of the things I learned
07:27 from TV cameraman is that the ball is in the air
07:29 for six seconds.
07:30 They hit a full shot, basically a tee shot,
07:33 whatever shot it is, roughly six seconds,
07:35 the ball is in the air.
07:37 You could count there's a little pause
07:39 and then a big roar.
07:40 Obviously he's got close to the green
07:43 or even on the green.
07:44 So I run around and you see the ball's
07:46 just short of the green.
07:47 And unfortunately, I didn't get quite far enough
07:50 around the green before he's playing his third shot
07:52 because I was playing catch up, basically.
07:54 And he chipped the damn thing in for a birdie.
07:58 Unfortunately, Barry Lane spoilt the story
08:00 by birding 17 and 18, 16 and 17.
08:05 And he didn't win, he lost by a shot.
08:07 But it's one of the most incredible golf shots
08:10 I've ever seen.
08:10 He was always fine with me.
08:12 I had occasions when he'd let me lie down behind him
08:17 and shoo all the other photographers off, literally.
08:19 So I had very, very good relationship with him,
08:23 not by pushing myself at him,
08:26 but I think it was just mutual trust
08:28 and because I was around a lot following him.
08:32 But I was still doing football at the time.
08:34 So I actually, when you look,
08:36 I didn't do that many tournaments that Seve played in.
08:41 I did the majors and the bigger ones,
08:44 but all the regular European tour events,
08:46 I was usually being sent off to do football
08:48 at that stage of my career.
08:50 I remember those World Match plays so fondly.
08:54 Anyway, I actually got a lovely picture of him
08:59 on the tee on the par five, par three fifth.
09:03 And he put it in the bunker just left of the green.
09:05 And that bunker shot, you know,
09:09 bunker shots can be ordinary,
09:11 but it's very difficult to get what I call
09:15 nicely framed bunker shots,
09:18 you know, where the player's in the right,
09:19 the ball's up to the other side.
09:22 And so it fills the frame nicely,
09:24 background's lovely.
09:25 I'm always very keen on backgrounds
09:28 to try and get as much out of focus
09:30 so you really isolate the subject.
09:32 Golf, I keep on saying to people,
09:34 you know, golf is one of the best spectator sports
09:38 because you can get close to your heroes.
09:40 You know, you can be eight feet
09:42 from Tiger Woods playing a golf shot.
09:46 Name any other sport you can get so up close
09:48 and person with the great stars.
09:51 You can't really.
09:52 So even though you've got to walk a long way
09:54 and you've got to, you know,
09:55 be clever where you wait, this sort of thing.
09:58 I think golf's the best sport.
10:00 It's the greatest partnership in Ryder Cup history.
10:03 No one will get close to what they went up.
10:06 What was it?
10:06 12 points out of 15 or whatever it is.
10:10 I think they've got in it in all their matches.
10:13 No one will touch that.
10:14 And if you actually look at Seve,
10:16 he won three points out of four with Manuel Pinero
10:20 when he played with him in '85.
10:22 So Seve and fellow Spanish players
10:25 were incredibly strong chemistry, basically.
10:29 And, you know, from the word go,
10:30 the chemistry with '87 when Lazarbelle first played
10:34 and things like Oli holding that putt
10:36 and actually it was Saturday morning,
10:38 I think it was in '87.
10:39 And Seve knocked it four and a half feet past,
10:42 you know, and then Oli hold it again.
10:44 And you just saw the sort of the chemistry
10:46 between them on the 18th screen.
10:48 And it was like, you know,
10:51 that picture, it was so lucky
10:54 that jumping on the shoulders
10:55 because the Americans were playing at the same,
10:58 you know, around about the same moment that that happened.
11:01 And they did it once.
11:04 And I thought, damn, it's a bit of a messy picture
11:06 'cause the caddy was standing right behind him.
11:08 And the caddies sort of started walking on.
11:10 They were still standing in the same spot.
11:12 And then Oli did the same thing again.
11:14 And I've got this lovely clean background.
11:17 So it was a much nicer picture.
11:18 But Seve hit his second shot.
11:20 If you look at it, Oli's got a putter
11:21 and Seve's got his nine iron or whatever it was, eight iron.
11:25 And Keir Irwin's got these really slopey greens.
11:30 - Yeah.
11:30 - And you can't actually see the ball on the green sometimes.
11:33 And he just see over the top.
11:35 And if he stood on his shoulders,
11:36 he could see where the ball was
11:37 and it was on the green, you know.
11:38 So that's all he was looking for.
11:41 I'd always, I said to Robert Green
11:42 and Richard Simmons, I said,
11:45 look, the only way to do these Seve instructions
11:48 is to try and do it at home.
11:50 Yeah, and he was happy to have us come to his home.
11:53 So I think we had three articles to do on the instruction.
11:56 And Seve gave us the morning basically to do it.
12:00 And it all went really well.
12:03 We had a good time doing it
12:04 'cause I tried to make it challenging.
12:06 I always thought the best way to do the instruction
12:08 was to try and give him challenging shots,
12:11 bunker shots, try and hold this
12:13 or try and hit one that lands with a nine iron,
12:16 try and play with a nine iron low at this sort of stuff.
12:18 And he was great.
12:19 And once you got him doing that, he was electric.
12:22 He'd just show off basically.
12:23 And so then we're having lunch in the clubhouse
12:28 and he just chatting away.
12:29 And I said, Seve, you know,
12:31 one of the things I'd love to do is go to the beach
12:33 to see where you hit balls with a youngster.
12:36 You know, you want to go?
12:38 We go, it's afternoon.
12:40 And it was like, as easy as that.
12:43 It wasn't planned at all.
12:44 It was literally, and you know, five minutes later,
12:47 he comes out of the kitchen with a soup can in the golf club.
12:51 He grabs a napkin from the table.
12:53 He said, go on, off we go into his Range Rover,
12:56 drive down to Soma Beach, which is a beautiful beach.
12:59 And, you know, we were lucky in every sense
13:02 because we got onto the beach and it was low tide.
13:04 So the tide's out.
13:05 So it's perfect basically.
13:07 And it's blowing 30 miles an hour, freezing cold wind.
13:11 It's February.
13:12 So it's early February.
13:13 So it's pretty cold in Northern Spain at that time of year.
13:15 But he was like a kid, literally.
13:18 And, you know, he went off into the bushes
13:22 where he parked his car and came out with a stick.
13:24 And then he gets on his hands and knees
13:27 and he cuts the hole out with his soup can.
13:31 Sticks the stick in, ties the napkin to the top.
13:34 "This is my hole."
13:35 I said, I learned to putt for Augusta on this green, you know?
13:40 Because it's so fast, rock hard sand.
13:43 And it was like billiard table, basically.
13:45 So he did a few putts
13:47 and then he started hitting shots down a nine iron
13:49 and then a three iron down the beach.
13:51 And amazing, basically.
13:53 I couldn't, we couldn't believe our luck.
13:54 And he just let him hit shots, basically.
13:57 I mean, the day was without a doubt
13:59 the best, most memorable day of my life, basically,
14:02 in golf photography.
14:03 The final putt, yeah.
14:04 I mean, what can I say about that?
14:09 It was, you have to be lucky in this game.
14:12 There's no question you have to be lucky.
14:14 And I actually, you know, he got that amazing par,
14:19 beautiful par on 17.
14:21 He was still one shot behind going up 18.
14:23 Basically, he knew he had to birdie 18.
14:26 And the second shot he left 15 feet short of the hole.
14:31 And if you look at the video,
14:33 it's amazing how long that putt took to roll into that hole.
14:37 Because it literally, it was missing.
14:39 And it just hovered on the edge.
14:43 And then it fell in.
14:44 And of course, when you're photographing,
14:46 all you've got is just Seve in the camera.
14:49 You don't know if that ball's going in the hole.
14:51 So the only thing that's going to give you the clue
14:52 that that might be going in the hole is the crowd
14:55 or the player reacting.
14:57 And, you know, he reacted in a massive way.
15:01 And luckily enough, I'd had a premonition
15:03 or whatever it was, you know,
15:04 roller film 36 pictures is all it was in those days.
15:07 You think you can hit, shoot a thousand pictures
15:10 on something like that now with digital cameras.
15:13 We had 36 pictures to deal with.
15:15 A camera that runs at five, six frames a second.
15:18 You got about six seconds of ammunition, basically.
15:23 Luckily I had a fresh roll because, you know,
15:25 the best picture, the really nice picture,
15:27 the fist pump picture was very, very near
15:31 the end of the sequence.
15:32 If you look at it on the, you know,
15:34 it was very close to the end.
15:36 And I think just after that, I ran out of film.
15:38 So I didn't actually manage to get any pictures
15:40 of him hugging his caddy and walking off the thing.
15:42 Because I've literally run out of film.
15:44 So I said, 1984 was, you know,
15:47 I don't like to think I peaked then,
15:49 but it was, I had two pictures that year.
15:53 There was that picture.
15:54 And then two weeks later at the Olympics
15:56 in Los Angeles, I got my famous picture of Carl Lewis.
16:00 The pan shot of him running, which those two pictures.
16:03 I mean, I can't, you can't quantify how much,
16:08 how many times they've been used
16:10 and what they've done for my career, really.
16:12 But certainly for me, that St. Andrew's moment was,
16:17 that got me going as a golf photographer well and truly.
16:21 I, you know, I couldn't decide.
16:23 I like this one as a golfer.
16:24 - Yeah.
16:25 - Because I think this is a golf picture.
16:28 You know, this is a chap, a player,
16:31 an absolute peak of his swing.
16:34 The light's lovely.
16:35 The fact he's just on an upslope
16:37 makes his body go into that wonderful shape.
16:40 And the sun and the hair.
16:44 And this is where I'm going to come to what I think
16:46 is one of the most significant things
16:47 about photographing in the '80s,
16:49 was that a lot of golfers did not wear hats.
16:54 And if you look at a picture,
16:56 the first thing you're drawn to is the eyes of the subject.
16:59 I learned this very early in my sports photography,
17:03 you know, career that you had to get the eyes in focus.
17:07 If you don't get the eyes in focus,
17:09 the picture doesn't work.
17:10 When these golfers are wearing big visors
17:13 and big shadows under their eyes,
17:15 you don't see them.
17:16 You don't see the subject.
17:17 And, you know, I had that,
17:19 those lovely pictures of Seve,
17:21 Jack Nicklaus in '86, no hat.
17:24 The only person who got away with wearing a hat
17:27 was Greg Norman with the big straw hat,
17:29 which was, you know, it used to be kind of light
17:32 and it was part of his character.
17:34 But the Navy jumper,
17:36 there's something about the Navy jumper, isn't there?
17:38 It's like iconic.
17:39 And that, you know, that logo,
17:41 the Schlesinger Panther logo is iconic logo.
17:44 And yeah, so that's been great.
17:49 I mean, it's fantastic fun photographing him basically.