A LEGEND

Michael Weston makes a pilgrimage to Pedrena in Spain to visit Seve's family home and talk about his life and legacy with his children

The door opens and for a brief moment it's silent. Six people shuffle inside the room, no-one quite knowing where to look first. Rows of trophies are all neatly arranged in a space no larger than 12ft x 12ft. There are old golf balls, too, signed scorecards and two jackets of a certain colour that probably shouldn't be here. Photographs are not permittedrightly so. This is a shrine.

I'm in Pedreña, a village in northern Spain that lies on a peninsula about 2km across the bay from Santander. After staying the night at Posada de Pedrena, a charming family-run inn on the main road that enters the village, my photographer and I walk the short distance to Seve's home.

It's uphill and we stop to catch our breath and admire the views of the sleepy bay. Not for the first time I try to imagine what life would have been like here for Seve growing up. It's very quiet. There's the beach, lots of farmland, then, as we reach the top of the hill, we see the course, Real Golf de Pedrena.

Suddenly it becomes easy to picture a mischievous Seve skipping school to hop on the golf course, or leaving his brothers to take the cows out to the meadows while he practised hitting balls. In the 1960s, there would be many such days for young Severiano.

Who knows what would have become of Seve if his brother, Manuel, had not handed him his first club, or if Pedrena Golf Club hadn't been that constant temptation on the horizon to entice him over to play. Perhaps, like his father Baldomero, he'd have been a farmer.

What is certain is that once he'd started to caddie at the club to earn money for his family, the game had created a fire in his belly, one that became more fuelled with every obstacle he faced. Caddies generally weren't allowed to play the course. However, if you told Seve he couldn't do something, it would only make him more determined.