Seve Ballesteros

　　塞弗巴耶斯特羅斯

　　Severiano Ballesteros, Europe s greatest golfer,died on May 7th, aged 54.

　　歐洲高爾夫名將Severiano Ballesteros，5月7日辭世，享年54歲。

　　As he struck the ball, Seve Ballesteros fearedhe had overdone it. After a good 3-wood tee shotand a decent sand-wedge to the 18th green at StAndrews in 1984, the ball was only 15 feet belowthe hole. Now, in his sheer eagerness to win, he had hit it too hard. But no. The ball rolledsweetly towards the hole, improbably curving round, hovered on the edge of the cup, thentumbled in. It seemed to go in slow motion as he willed it and willed it forward. And with thathe had won the Open.

　　當把球推出時，塞弗巴耶斯特羅斯還在擔心自己用力過大。1984年圣安德魯斯賽第十八洞果嶺，在揮動一支3號木桿漂亮開球和沙坑桿后，球距洞口僅15 英呎之遙。由于求勝心切，他似乎用力過猛。但是球慢慢滾向球洞，令人難以置信地繞著彎，在洞口停了一下，然后滾了進去。小白球好像是隨著巴耶斯特羅斯的意愿慢慢...慢慢滾進去的。就這樣，他贏了比賽。

　　His joy then, as he punched the air, raised his arms to the crowd, laughed and almostdanced, was perhaps the most ecstatic moment ever seen in golf. Later he made that imagehis logo. Bags, shirts, caps and putter-covers proclaimed him to be the best. And for morethan a decade, from 1979 to 1991, he was. He won three British Open championships andtwo Masters, and over his whole career bore off 87 titles. He was in the European Ryder Cupteam that in 1985 overturned 28 years of American domination, and later led a team toRyder victory himself.

　　巴耶斯特羅斯在空中揮舞拳頭，向觀眾高舉雙臂，大笑雀躍也許這是高爾夫賽史上最狂喜的瞬間了。后來，他把自己此時的形象用作商標。背包、T恤、帽子和推桿套上的商標都宣揚著他是最棒的高爾夫球手。而從1979到1991年的十多年中，他確實是最棒的。英國公開賽中他曾三次勇奪桂冠，大師賽上他也兩次奪冠，在整個比賽生涯中他包攬了87項賽事冠軍。1985年萊德杯歐洲隊一舉打破了美國隊28年來一統天下的局面，那時，巴耶斯特羅斯也在隊中。后來，他又親自率領歐洲隊勇奪萊德杯冠軍。

　　It was also beautifully done, inspiring a whole generation of European golfers. He hadstrength for the long game, finesse and subtlety for the short game, but also a daring thatbordered on recklessness. Pure passion made him drive his tee shots into car parks, gorseand bunkers, but this was a man who could pitch a ball over an eight-foot wall, or hook a 5-iron shot round a tree, or chip-and-run through a tiny gap between two yawning bunkers, andsink the putt for an improbable birdie. He was always in trouble, yet he never was.

　　巴耶斯特羅斯打得如此漂亮，他鼓舞了整整一代歐洲高爾夫球選手。他有著長距離球所需的力量，短距離球所需的技巧和敏銳，但是他太大膽，幾近魯莽。全憑感情行事的他有時會把球打到停車場、荊豆灌木叢和沙坑障礙中區。但同時他又能把球打過八英尺的高墻或者用5號鐵桿擊出可以繞過樹的曲線球，或者是一個切滾球把球打過兩個沙坑之間窄窄的間隔，再就是推進桿打出一個幾乎不可能的小鳥。他似乎總是有麻煩，但又從來沒有過任何麻煩。

　　Luck, said some. Miraculous, said others, as they sighed at his soft blasts out of bunkerson to the green, or the fluid grace of his swing. Commentators talked of natural genius, asthough he was still a seven-year-old whacking a pebble with a home-made club on a beachin Cantabria. His impoverished family put it down to destino. Such talk annoyed him. It wasall hard graft and iron discipline: hitting a ball, alone, for hours. It started in boyhood,putting into tomato cans on a bumpy two-hole piece of field on his parents farm, or drivinginto a fishing net hung in the barn. He reckoned he had hit 1,000 balls a day. Because he hadonly one club, a 3-iron, he learned how to do everything with it: low, powerful shots, high,soft-landing shots and impossible recovery shots out of long, tangled grass. He couldimprovise his way out of anything.

　　有人說他全憑運氣。還有一些人，看著他把球從沙坑到果嶺和他流暢優雅的揮桿，嘆口氣然后說不可思議。解說員評論他時總是說天賦，好像他還是那個在坎塔布里亞沙灘上用自制球棒玩卵石的七歲小孩。他家境貧寒，家里人說命該如此。這種話惹惱了他。自己一個人練習擊球，一練就幾個小時他成功是全憑自己刻苦努力和堅強毅力。當還是小孩時，他就開始用番茄醬罐在一塊有兩個洞的坑坑洼洼的地上練習，或者是把球打進掛在谷倉墻上的漁網里。他估計那時自己每天要打1000個球。因為只有一支三號鐵桿，他不得不用這支球桿學會所有動作：強力的低飛球，軟著陸的高球，以及從長草區難以置信的就出險球脫困。

　　Admirers asked where the passion came from. He found it hard to explain. The joy ofimpact, finding the sweet spot on the club-face and feeling the ball obey, visualizing theperfect shot and sensing that he could achieve it, was a large part of it. But pride fired himmore. Man and boy, he was consumed by the need to prove himself. First against his threebrothers, who also became professional golfers; against the old guard at the Royal GolfClub at Pedrea, who treated him like dirt when he caddied there; against the Americans,whose players, he assumed, had been formally instructed on world-class courses, and whothought the Masters and the Ryder Cup belonged to them; against anyone who thought hewas inferior, or tried to control him with senseless regulations. Though the European Tourowed so much to him, he fell out badly with its officials in the 1980seven being left out ofthe 1981 Ryder Cup team, when he was ranked number one in both Europe and the world.

　　球迷問他激情從何而來。他覺得這個問題很難說清。很大一部分激情來自自己控制球的喜悅來自在桿面上找到最佳擊球點并感覺球順著自己的愿望走，來自目估出最佳擊球方式并指導自己能做到。但讓他滿懷激情的更多的是自尊。從小到大，他都感覺需要向他人證明自己：先是向他三個同樣成為職業高爾夫選手的兄弟;再是向皇家佩德尼亞高爾夫俱樂部的老警衛他在那里當球童時警衛從沒把他當回事;然后向美國隊他覺得美國隊選手受的是世界級球場的正式訓練，而且他們把大師賽和萊德杯冠軍看做是他們理所應得的;還有向那些看不起他，向用毫無道理的規定控制他的人。雖然歐洲巡回賽讓他聲名大增，80年代那幾年他還是和大賽官員大吵不斷。結果，1981年萊德杯歐洲隊他被排除在外。而那時候，不管是在歐洲還是全世界，他都堪稱第一。

　　Rising, falling

　　起起落落

　　He started every game to win it, and sometimes wept when he failed. About three weeksbefore each big tournament he would enter a bubble of concentration that muffled eventhe crowd s applause. He was aware only of his body, the club, the ball, and the winninginteraction between them. Hence the expression, serious even to mournful, that shadowedhis film-star-handsome face on the course. But he was not above a little psychologicalwarfarethe odd cough, the innocent remarkto put his rivals off their stroke. And as hepolitely shook their hands, he would be thinking: I am going to bury you.

　　每場比賽他都抱著必勝的心態開始，有時候輸了甚至會默默流淚。從每場重大賽事前大概三個星期開始，他會進入一個極其專注的自我世界中去，此時觀眾甚至都不敢大聲鼓掌。他腦中只有自己的身體、球桿、球，以及怎樣讓這三者配合來贏得比賽。所以，他表情嚴肅，甚至略帶悲傷，這讓球場上他那張原本影星般英俊的臉不那么英俊了。不過他深諳于賽場心理戰怎樣用怪聲怪調的咳嗽、毫無惡意的話語來讓對手猶豫遲疑。當他禮貌地和對手握手時，他心里想的是：我會讓你死得很慘。

　　He had made his name on the professional golfing scene at 19, still a gawky ladcontinually hitching up his trousers, throwing away a lead with sublime impatience atRoyal Birkdale in 1976. He left the scene early, too. At Augusta in 1986, when he lost theMasters with a clumsy 4-iron shot into water at the 15th, he felt his touch was fading.Increasingly through the 1990s he missed the cut for tournaments and slid down the rankingsof players. Back pain crippled him. His marriage broke up, leaving him alone in the huge newhouse he had built at Pedrea with display cases full of silver cups and an 18-hole course inthe garden, and in 2008 he was diagnosed with the brain cancer that killed him.

　　早在19歲，巴耶斯德羅斯就在一場職業高爾夫球賽中一舉成名。那是1976年皇家伯克戴爾賽，還是個笨手笨腳的毛頭小伙子的他，時不時提提自己的褲子，毫無耐心讓他失去領先優勢。1986年美國奧古斯塔大師賽，第十五洞時他用四號鐵桿一個極爛的開球把球打入水障，因而痛失冠軍，那時候那感覺自己的技術一日不如一日了。90年代，他漸漸在各種賽事中失去優勢，排名也逐漸下滑。背痛讓他幾乎殘疾。婚姻破裂后，他自己孤單一人生活在佩德尼亞的豪宅中，家里櫥窗中擺滿了銀質獎杯，花園里是18洞的高爾夫球場。2008年他被診斷為患有腦癌，并最終因此去世。

　　Golf, he often said, was a mysterious thing. Despite all his practice, some days heplayed well and others badly. A good swing would come, then disappear. On that fantasticday at St Andrews in 1984 he had dressed for the kill at the 15th, pulling on his dark-blueSlazenger sweater in which he had won at Lytham five years earlier as if it was a matador ssuit of lights. On other occasions he watched ruefully as the shot, like the bull, avoided thetarget. The ball rose, travelled and fell; you were born, you did your best, you died. The arcof golf was perhaps no more biddable than the sad trajectory of his life.

　　他說，高爾夫是一種很神秘的運動。雖然他刻苦訓練，但表現仍起起落落。漂亮的揮桿說來就來，說走就走。1984年圣安德魯斯賽，那個激動人心的日子，第十五洞時他盛裝上陣，穿上五年前萊瑟姆比賽奪冠時的那件深藍色斯萊辛格運動衫，好像斗牛士輕裝上陣一樣。也有時候他看著別人擊球不中時滿是遺憾。球起，球飛，球落;出生，巔峰，死亡。也許，高爾夫球的弧線并不比他悲哀一生的軌跡更溫順吧!

　　Seve Ballesteros

　　塞弗巴耶斯特羅斯

　　Severiano Ballesteros, Europe s greatest golfer,died on May 7th, aged 54.

　　歐洲高爾夫名將Severiano Ballesteros，5月7日辭世，享年54歲。

　　As he struck the ball, Seve Ballesteros fearedhe had overdone it. After a good 3-wood tee shotand a decent sand-wedge to the 18th green at StAndrews in 1984, the ball was only 15 feet belowthe hole. Now, in his sheer eagerness to win, he had hit it too hard. But no. The ball rolledsweetly towards the hole, improbably curving round, hovered on the edge of the cup, thentumbled in. It seemed to go in slow motion as he willed it and willed it forward. And with thathe had won the Open.

　　當把球推出時，塞弗巴耶斯特羅斯還在擔心自己用力過大。1984年圣安德魯斯賽第十八洞果嶺，在揮動一支3號木桿漂亮開球和沙坑桿后，球距洞口僅15 英呎之遙。由于求勝心切，他似乎用力過猛。但是球慢慢滾向球洞，令人難以置信地繞著彎，在洞口停了一下，然后滾了進去。小白球好像是隨著巴耶斯特羅斯的意愿慢慢...慢慢滾進去的。就這樣，他贏了比賽。

　　His joy then, as he punched the air, raised his arms to the crowd, laughed and almostdanced, was perhaps the most ecstatic moment ever seen in golf. Later he made that imagehis logo. Bags, shirts, caps and putter-covers proclaimed him to be the best. And for morethan a decade, from 1979 to 1991, he was. He won three British Open championships andtwo Masters, and over his whole career bore off 87 titles. He was in the European Ryder Cupteam that in 1985 overturned 28 years of American domination, and later led a team toRyder victory himself.

　　巴耶斯特羅斯在空中揮舞拳頭，向觀眾高舉雙臂，大笑雀躍也許這是高爾夫賽史上最狂喜的瞬間了。后來，他把自己此時的形象用作商標。背包、T恤、帽子和推桿套上的商標都宣揚著他是最棒的高爾夫球手。而從1979到1991年的十多年中，他確實是最棒的。英國公開賽中他曾三次勇奪桂冠，大師賽上他也兩次奪冠，在整個比賽生涯中他包攬了87項賽事冠軍。1985年萊德杯歐洲隊一舉打破了美國隊28年來一統天下的局面，那時，巴耶斯特羅斯也在隊中。后來，他又親自率領歐洲隊勇奪萊德杯冠軍。

　　It was also beautifully done, inspiring a whole generation of European golfers. He hadstrength for the long game, finesse and subtlety for the short game, but also a daring thatbordered on recklessness. Pure passion made him drive his tee shots into car parks, gorseand bunkers, but this was a man who could pitch a ball over an eight-foot wall, or hook a 5-iron shot round a tree, or chip-and-run through a tiny gap between two yawning bunkers, andsink the putt for an improbable birdie. He was always in trouble, yet he never was.

　　巴耶斯特羅斯打得如此漂亮，他鼓舞了整整一代歐洲高爾夫球選手。他有著長距離球所需的力量，短距離球所需的技巧和敏銳，但是他太大膽，幾近魯莽。全憑感情行事的他有時會把球打到停車場、荊豆灌木叢和沙坑障礙中區。但同時他又能把球打過八英尺的高墻或者用5號鐵桿擊出可以繞過樹的曲線球，或者是一個切滾球把球打過兩個沙坑之間窄窄的間隔，再就是推進桿打出一個幾乎不可能的小鳥。他似乎總是有麻煩，但又從來沒有過任何麻煩。

　　Luck, said some. Miraculous, said others, as they sighed at his soft blasts out of bunkerson to the green, or the fluid grace of his swing. Commentators talked of natural genius, asthough he was still a seven-year-old whacking a pebble with a home-made club on a beachin Cantabria. His impoverished family put it down to destino. Such talk annoyed him. It wasall hard graft and iron discipline: hitting a ball, alone, for hours. It started in boyhood,putting into tomato cans on a bumpy two-hole piece of field on his parents farm, or drivinginto a fishing net hung in the barn. He reckoned he had hit 1,000 balls a day. Because he hadonly one club, a 3-iron, he learned how to do everything with it: low, powerful shots, high,soft-landing shots and impossible recovery shots out of long, tangled grass. He couldimprovise his way out of anything.

　　有人說他全憑運氣。還有一些人，看著他把球從沙坑到果嶺和他流暢優雅的揮桿，嘆口氣然后說不可思議。解說員評論他時總是說天賦，好像他還是那個在坎塔布里亞沙灘上用自制球棒玩卵石的七歲小孩。他家境貧寒，家里人說命該如此。這種話惹惱了他。自己一個人練習擊球，一練就幾個小時他成功是全憑自己刻苦努力和堅強毅力。當還是小孩時，他就開始用番茄醬罐在一塊有兩個洞的坑坑洼洼的地上練習，或者是把球打進掛在谷倉墻上的漁網里。他估計那時自己每天要打1000個球。因為只有一支三號鐵桿，他不得不用這支球桿學會所有動作：強力的低飛球，軟著陸的高球，以及從長草區難以置信的就出險球脫困。

　　Admirers asked where the passion came from. He found it hard to explain. The joy ofimpact, finding the sweet spot on the club-face and feeling the ball obey, visualizing theperfect shot and sensing that he could achieve it, was a large part of it. But pride fired himmore. Man and boy, he was consumed by the need to prove himself. First against his threebrothers, who also became professional golfers; against the old guard at the Royal GolfClub at Pedrea, who treated him like dirt when he caddied there; against the Americans,whose players, he assumed, had been formally instructed on world-class courses, and whothought the Masters and the Ryder Cup belonged to them; against anyone who thought hewas inferior, or tried to control him with senseless regulations. Though the European Tourowed so much to him, he fell out badly with its officials in the 1980seven being left out ofthe 1981 Ryder Cup team, when he was ranked number one in both Europe and the world.

　　球迷問他激情從何而來。他覺得這個問題很難說清。很大一部分激情來自自己控制球的喜悅來自在桿面上找到最佳擊球點并感覺球順著自己的愿望走，來自目估出最佳擊球方式并指導自己能做到。但讓他滿懷激情的更多的是自尊。從小到大，他都感覺需要向他人證明自己：先是向他三個同樣成為職業高爾夫選手的兄弟;再是向皇家佩德尼亞高爾夫俱樂部的老警衛他在那里當球童時警衛從沒把他當回事;然后向美國隊他覺得美國隊選手受的是世界級球場的正式訓練，而且他們把大師賽和萊德杯冠軍看做是他們理所應得的;還有向那些看不起他，向用毫無道理的規定控制他的人。雖然歐洲巡回賽讓他聲名大增，80年代那幾年他還是和大賽官員大吵不斷。結果，1981年萊德杯歐洲隊他被排除在外。而那時候，不管是在歐洲還是全世界，他都堪稱第一。

　　Rising, falling

　　起起落落

　　He started every game to win it, and sometimes wept when he failed. About three weeksbefore each big tournament he would enter a bubble of concentration that muffled eventhe crowd s applause. He was aware only of his body, the club, the ball, and the winninginteraction between them. Hence the expression, serious even to mournful, that shadowedhis film-star-handsome face on the course. But he was not above a little psychologicalwarfarethe odd cough, the innocent remarkto put his rivals off their stroke. And as hepolitely shook their hands, he would be thinking: I am going to bury you.

　　每場比賽他都抱著必勝的心態開始，有時候輸了甚至會默默流淚。從每場重大賽事前大概三個星期開始，他會進入一個極其專注的自我世界中去，此時觀眾甚至都不敢大聲鼓掌。他腦中只有自己的身體、球桿、球，以及怎樣讓這三者配合來贏得比賽。所以，他表情嚴肅，甚至略帶悲傷，這讓球場上他那張原本影星般英俊的臉不那么英俊了。不過他深諳于賽場心理戰怎樣用怪聲怪調的咳嗽、毫無惡意的話語來讓對手猶豫遲疑。當他禮貌地和對手握手時，他心里想的是：我會讓你死得很慘。

　　He had made his name on the professional golfing scene at 19, still a gawky ladcontinually hitching up his trousers, throwing away a lead with sublime impatience atRoyal Birkdale in 1976. He left the scene early, too. At Augusta in 1986, when he lost theMasters with a clumsy 4-iron shot into water at the 15th, he felt his touch was fading.Increasingly through the 1990s he missed the cut for tournaments and slid down the rankingsof players. Back pain crippled him. His marriage broke up, leaving him alone in the huge newhouse he had built at Pedrea with display cases full of silver cups and an 18-hole course inthe garden, and in 2008 he was diagnosed with the brain cancer that killed him.

　　早在19歲，巴耶斯德羅斯就在一場職業高爾夫球賽中一舉成名。那是1976年皇家伯克戴爾賽，還是個笨手笨腳的毛頭小伙子的他，時不時提提自己的褲子，毫無耐心讓他失去領先優勢。1986年美國奧古斯塔大師賽，第十五洞時他用四號鐵桿一個極爛的開球把球打入水障，因而痛失冠軍，那時候那感覺自己的技術一日不如一日了。90年代，他漸漸在各種賽事中失去優勢，排名也逐漸下滑。背痛讓他幾乎殘疾。婚姻破裂后，他自己孤單一人生活在佩德尼亞的豪宅中，家里櫥窗中擺滿了銀質獎杯，花園里是18洞的高爾夫球場。2008年他被診斷為患有腦癌，并最終因此去世。

　　Golf, he often said, was a mysterious thing. Despite all his practice, some days heplayed well and others badly. A good swing would come, then disappear. On that fantasticday at St Andrews in 1984 he had dressed for the kill at the 15th, pulling on his dark-blueSlazenger sweater in which he had won at Lytham five years earlier as if it was a matador ssuit of lights. On other occasions he watched ruefully as the shot, like the bull, avoided thetarget. The ball rose, travelled and fell; you were born, you did your best, you died. The arcof golf was perhaps no more biddable than the sad trajectory of his life.

　　他說，高爾夫是一種很神秘的運動。雖然他刻苦訓練，但表現仍起起落落。漂亮的揮桿說來就來，說走就走。1984年圣安德魯斯賽，那個激動人心的日子，第十五洞時他盛裝上陣，穿上五年前萊瑟姆比賽奪冠時的那件深藍色斯萊辛格運動衫，好像斗牛士輕裝上陣一樣。也有時候他看著別人擊球不中時滿是遺憾。球起，球飛，球落;出生，巔峰，死亡。也許，高爾夫球的弧線并不比他悲哀一生的軌跡更溫順吧!