Seve on collision course with Tour

THE FEATHERS were ruffled during last week’s Italian Open, but the fur could really fly at The Belfry over the next few days when Seve Ballesteros renews contact with the officials of the PGA Europen Tour during the Benson & Hedges International.

Seve is more convinced than ever that the tour has it in for him after his disqualification for slow play at Brescia and it remains to be seen how far he is prepared to go with the present conflict, having already launched a blistering verbal public attack on John Paramor and Ken Schofield .

There has never been much love lost between the Spaniard and the formidable Paramor, who once famously refused Seve a free drop from the butt of a tree at the final hole of a Volvo Masters at Valderrama. Ballesteros needed a par four to catch Bernhard Langer that day but Paramor's decision and the consequent bogey only served to add further to Seve's apparent sense of unfair treatment at the hands of Tour officials.

Clearly, hell hath no fury like a Ballesteros scorned and the resentment has been burning away for years, not helped, of course, by a golf game that to all intents and purposes has gone up in smoke. In 2000, Ballesteros was one of those who called for an audit of the Tour finances and was strongly supported at the time by Nick Faldo, Jose-Maria Olazabal and Bernhard Langer.

Fascinatingly, all three are also teeing it up this week in the Benson & Hedges to mark the last occasion the tournament is to be played. I have no doubt that efforts will be made to lure some if not all of the "rebels" of three years ago to again voice their views on Tour officials and the way they are handling their affairs. Equally, though, I doubt they will go as far as Ballesteros last Saturday when he raged at the imposition of a slow play penalty and fine by Paramor.

"It's like the PGA Mafia," he shrieked. "Ken Schofield is like a dictator and he drives the tour the way he wants. IMG and the Tour have the television, the players, the exhibitions, the course design, everything. Ten years ago, I could have taken a minute and a half to play a shot and it was okay. But I am not important any more to the Tour. What I have done for 30 years doesn't count any more. The most important people are John Paramor and the rest of the referees."

Interestingly, Ballesteros doesn't always confine his negative views on Tour officials to the British. He also received a time warning recently from fellow Spaniard Jose-Maria Zamorra and was later seen to take him to task in the club car park. He has also been spouting off about the impending demise of his own Seve Trophy, alleging the reason for its uncertain future is because "it is not part of the European Tour in terms of percentages nor is it run by IMG.

They tried to boycott the Seve Trophy in Ireland because they didn't get any piece of the cake and still today they try. I think it is a fantastic tournament but it has no future and will probably disappear this year or next year."

Is this all paranoia on the part of a golfer disillusioned and bitterly disappointed by the state of his golf or does he have a genuine point?

There is no doubt the European Tour has been badly affected by the departure from the scene of players of the calibre of Ballesteros, especially; Langer, Faldo, Sandy Lyle and Ian Woosnam. Would John Paramor have slapped a penalty shot and a fine on Ballesteros at a time when he was Open and Masters champion and the most charismatic personality in the game by a considerable distance? Only Paramor himself can answer that one although it is fair to say that while Seve may be a soft target these days, there was a time when he was the most formidable of adversaries.

"He left me with no option," said Paramor.