MARTIN SAMUEL

Only briefly did that look of undiluted joy slip from Sergio Garcia’s face. ‘Seve Ballesteros’s birthday today. How much were you thinking about him this week?’ asked the greenjacketed moderator.

Oh, come on. First question, seriously? He doesn’t even get one to himself before we’re handing the glory to Seve? The man has waited 74 majors for this moment. let him at least take a bow before we invoke the wildest vagaries of fate.

The problem with sport’s obsession with the departed is that no matter how well-meaning and respectful the intention, it reduces even the greatest achievements to cheap drama. The more we imagine Ballesteros looking down and rescuing his forlorn compatriot, the more we see his picture in Garcia’s mind, the more a celestial hand takes credit for steering those mighty wedge shots to the 18th and the less it seems the work of the player. yet if birthdays and heavenly fate won the Masters for Garcia, what about those other years?

How about April 9, 2016, for instance, when Ballesteros apparently let him shoot a third-round 81 at Augusta having started the day tied in eighth place? How about April 9, 2014, when Ballesteros’s birthday treat was to watch passively from above as Matt Jones and Matt Kuchar eased past Garcia into a playoff at the Shell Houston Open.

It can’t be Garcia’s work when he stuffs up but Seve’s when he wins.

Perhaps that was why, try as the hosts and the media might to present Ballesteros his third green jacket, posthumously, Garcia did not indulge them beyond dutiful politeness.

He gave Ballesteros his due as the father of Spanish golf, he was never less than courteous about a truly great champion, he even threw the headline writers the odd bone, but he did not go full maudlin.

‘It definitely popped in my mind a few times,’ he said, in answer to the first Ballesteros question. ‘A couple of times here and there. And I’m sure he helped a little bit with some of those shots or some of those putts.’

Hear that? Popped in… a few times… a little bit. Hardly Randall

and Hopkirk (Deceased) as a partnership, were they?

LATer, when asked to recall a practice round with Ballesteros in 1999, Garcia, 37, was more unhelpfully honest. ‘I can’t remember it that well,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to lie or tell you something that is not there. I do remember playing with him and with Jose Maria Olazabal, but I can’t really remember the things we talked about. I’m getting old.’

everybody is. That’s the point. And as we live in the television age, everybody can now be remembered in slow motion and with an appropriately sentimental soundtrack or back story, for ever and ever, amen.

yet golf had superstars as far back as the 19th century. When Harry Vardon played Willie Park Jnr in a challenge match in 1899, 10,000 travelled to north Berwick to watch it. The Great Triumvirate was the name given to Vardon and his rivals John Henry Taylor and James Braid — but a century on only Vardon is recalled beyond the sport’s aficionados.

By contrast, Arnold Palmer was so much a part of the ceremonies around the 2017 Masters that it was almost as if he was still with us. He even commanded a page in the players’ guide given to the media — laid out identically, as if he were competing — an official publication, not a souvenir for the patrons in which a tribute might be expected.

On Saturday the main broadcast coverage of the Masters began at 3pm local time, the same moment that the leading pair teed off. no sooner had they disappeared up the first fairway than CBS segued to a reminder of the ceremony that took place at 7am on Thursday morning, to mark Palmer’s passing. Unlike the golf, it was shown in full. The tears, the laying of his green jacket on an empty white chair, the speech by Augusta president Billy Payne.

Palmer died on September 25, 2016. And, yes, this was the first Masters since then and he won it four times. remembrance was appropriate. yet the ceremony was more than two days old by the time CBS returned to it. There were golfers from the generation that was Palmer’s legacy out on the course competing fiercely at that time — Fred Couples was born in 1959, the year after Palmer won his first green jacket. Wouldn’t it have been as much of a tribute to simply watch them play?

HAd Jordan Spieth won he would have received exactly the same questions about the man he called Mr Palmer as Garcia did about Ballesteros, and maybe Spieth would have been more comfortable with them.

At previous competitions he appeared to have a fine recall for their meetings; perhaps they were simply closer than Ballesteros and Garcia, who has his strongest bond with Olazabal.

Whatever the reality, there is a difference between embracing or respecting the past and wallowing in it. Making Garcia’s greatest achievement all about Ballesteros did him a disservice. He didn’t win the Masters because it was Seve’s birthday, he did so because over 73 holes he was the best man out there.

WHAT else is there to say about Arsenal? Each week seems to provide stronger evidence that the ‘careful what you wish for’ argument is bunk. Already lying sixth in a six-horse race, why should the club fear that a successor to Arsene Wenger could do worse? Indeed, even if a successor lost ground next season, the blame would be spread, given the state of the present squad. Wenger may no longer be passing on an elite unit but a team that looks weak under pressure and is in dire need of an overhaul. Crystal Palace are still not clear of relegation, despite an admirable revival under Sam Allardyce. Certainly, they should not be three goals better than Arsenal. There are too many Arsenal players who are complaining about public perception while doing nothing to affect this negativity beyond speaking into microphones. There are too many players who deliver Wengersupporting soundbites in lieu of performances. Nothing about this season suggests recovery. Quite the opposite. Increasingly, Arsenal risk losing their best players this summer and may be squeezed in the transfer market by rivals with better prospects. Even Wenger’s personal cachet is not what it was. The chance to work with him used to be a selling point — but is that still the case now he is flanked by Antonio Conte, Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Jose Mourinho, Mauricio Pochettino, even ronald Koeman? And what of those abroad — Zinedine Zidane, Carlo Ancelotti, Diego Simeone? Losing Wenger comes at a price, obviously. A replacement would cost more, demand more and be less tolerant of failure. A replacement would make expensive changes, a replacement may seek to implement a renewal programme on the scale of Manchester United’s. The players should realise that Wenger would not go alone. A performance like the one at Crystal Palace would not be tolerated by any new manager. Arsenal’s players must start producing more than words or they would be out, the same as him.