He called Seve ‘f**king loco', but in the end they became business partners

Irish Daily Mirror

12-07-2025

It was all or nothing for the man responsible for what Golf Digest described as 'The greatest upset in Walker Cup history'.
Roddy Carr had gone 14 weeks in a row without qualifying for a tournament, and there he was; another Monday, another attempt to break into the business end of the week.
'It was a living nightmare,' he says, speaking to Starsport in his office at the stunning Barbados Golf Club that he helped rebuild and now runs on the dreamy Caribbean island.
The air-conditioning offers relief from the humidity outside that has the mercury soaring in the upper mid-30s, but Carr has grown accustomed to the heat by now.
Almost five decades earlier, he was dealing with a different type of heat.
'It was the last tournament of the year, El Paraiso, Spain,' he says. 'I'm drawn in the round with a young Spanish kid who I didn't know, called Severiano Ballesteros.
'I have to shoot level par for two rounds to make my card. I'm five grand down in the bank, this is life or death.
'But all I have to do in this rinky-dink course is shoot 72 and 73, and I am there.'
Flash back to May 1971 and Carr was one of 10 amateurs to represent Great Britain and Ireland against the USA in the Walker Cup, played over the Old Course at St Andrew's.
The Americans hadn't lost since 1938 and they routinely chalked up comfortable margins of victory.
But this one was tight. It came down to Carr versus Jim Simons. The final hole. An 11-footer.
'The Walker Cup was without a doubt the moment I will never forget,' says Carr, a smile stretching from ear-to-ear.
'I ended up holing an 11-yard putt on the last green in front of 10,000 people to win it, with my father (Joe, one of Ireland's most celebrated amateurs of all time) there watching.
'Then I went on the Tour and that was 10 years of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. I should have quit after six years.'
But he didn't. And so he found himself on the first tee at El Paraiso, next to this young Spaniard.
'Manuel, Seve's brother, came up and introduced him,' says Carr. 'Seve didn't speak a word of English.'
Carr pushes his chair back from his desk and begins to move his arms as if he's holding his old club.
He explains: 'Seve gets up to drive with a five-iron to the first hole, he throws the club after it, kicks the bag down… 'Puta madre'.
'The whole way around he was out of control. And I'm going, what is this kid like? He was 16. I'll never forget it. I went in thinking, I can't play with him tomorrow.
'I scratched a 73, now I needed to shoot a 72.
'I went over to Manuel. He said, 'How did you get on with Seve?'.
'I said, 'Your brother is f**king loco, I'm not playing with him, I'm going to report him to Ken Schofield (then executive director of the European Tour) because I'm not playing with him tomorrow'.
'He said, 'You can't'.
'I said, 'I'm doing it, it's too important, I can't play with him, he shot 65, he thinks it should have been 55, and he can't behave like that'.
'To cut a long story short, Manuel talks me down. The next day, I shake hands with Seve… he was worse!
'I ended up shooting 72, I made my card and I lasted another couple of years.'
Carr flew back to Ireland last week to help oversee the successful running of the Women's Irish Open at Carton House, managed by ForeFront Group, of which he is a director.
The first time he swapped his irons for an ironed suit and briefcase was when he went to work for IMG, first in the USA and then in Hong Kong.
And then, another encounter with Seve.
He says: '10 years later, after IMG, I got back and Ken Schofield said, 'I have something in Spain for you, Roddy, if you want to go over there'. He was now 'Seve', because he had won the Masters.
'It's 10 years after our rounds together in El Paraiso. He was up on the top floor of the St Andrew's Hotel, pastel sweater thrown across like Arnie (Arnold Palmer) used to wear. He is walking out to the elevator and I ambush him.
'I said, 'Hi Seve, it's Roddy'.
'He said, 'I know you, you work with IMG now'. I said, 'Yes, I do'.
''You didn't sign me!'.
''No Seve, we didn't'.
'He said, 'What do you want, Roddy?'.
''Well, Seve, I have an idea. I want to come to Spain to make tournaments. If you play in the tournaments and I make the tournaments, we can make a partnership and I make money for your family and my family. That's it'.
'He said, 'Roddy?'.
''Yes, Seve'.
''Remember El Paraiso?'.
''Yes'.
''You didn't report me'.
''No'.
''So, we make business'.
'And we did. We made 35 tour events, put on the Ryder Cup and I managed him for the last three years, and then came over to Barbados.'
So, what was the late, great Spaniard like to work with?
'Impossible. Mission impossible. His way or the highway,' Carr replies.
'He was a matador. People don't understand. I lived in his house in Petrana. My son was born there.
'When you live in Spain and you go to a bullfight, it's the bull and the matador. One comes out alive. It's win or die, and that's it. People don't understand that mentality.
'So, when he went to a Masters, I think he was 21 at his first, in his mind, this is real, he was staying in the Days Inn, he told me, 'There are 88 people playing and I had to kill 87 of them', and he's motioning the sword to the back of the neck.
''I make a birdie on two, I see 50 (dead) and I see the blood on the green. I eagle 15 and I know 30 of them are dead. I kill them all. With nine holes to go, they were all dead. But then Curtis Strange, he makes birdie and I have to go and kill him'.
'(Tony) Jacklin never got the credit for bringing Seve in as the gladiator. He brought the gladiator in to lead the Ryder Cup.
'They called him Steve in America. When he went over there, the way they broke people in those days was, they isolated them.
'If you know the Spanish culture, they have to go out at night, they yak away and they eat their heads off, and that's the way they live.
'So, they would isolate him, nobody would have a meal with him, he'd be in room service in a Holiday Inn for four weeks in a row.
'They were trying to break him. And they were calling him 'Steve'. This is where it all started. Revenge. That's what he was like. Fascinating.'