Film review: Seve

While other children studied hard, young Seve spent countless hours on the beach close to his home, practicing chips and puts with a home-made club, fashioned out of the head of a broken 3-iron strapped to a stick.

Armed with raw talent, 19-year-old Seve burst onto the international scene in 1976 when he finished in joint second place with Jack Nicklaus at The Open Championship.

For the next two decades, Ballesteros amassed a heaving mantelpiece of trophies including a record 50 European Tour titles and was also instrumental in establishing Europe as a dominant force in the Ryder Cup, partnering Jose Maria Olazabal to glory on countless occasions.

Documentary filmmaker John-Paul Davidson pays tribute to this remarkable sporting statesman, who died of brain cancer in 2011, with a film that intercuts archive footage with dramatisations of Ballesteros’ formative years in sun-drenched Pedrena.