Serial: The women who have left their mark on Spanish golf
Spanish women’s golf is gathering more strength than ever. The more than possible celebration of the Solheim Cup in Spain will be a recognition of all that our golfers have achieved throughout history, and it is in law to pay tribute to the first professional golfers who fought opening doors to achieve what golf Spanish female is today.
And the first of them is Elvira Larrazábal , the number 1 license for Spanish professionals issued in 1958 , which opened the way for the 86 women with professional licenses that exist today.
Elvira Larrazábal has been called mother courage, for having given up her profession as a golfer and dedicated her life to her daughter Carmen, who was born with cerebral palsy. Elvira’s life has been an example of struggle, success and humility that triumphed at a time when victories were for the nobles . And in that world she demonstrated the greatness of a humble person.
His story has fabric. Elvira was born in 1933 in Neguri , in a house next to hole 4 of the golf course; she was the daughter of Ángel and María, a modest family. His father was, what was vulgarly said, “a red of war” . As ertzaina she was an escort for José Antonio Aguirre, the first Lehendakari, and spent five years in a prison in El Puerto de Santa María while Aguirre was in exile. For this reason, his return home was not a path of roses, but at the Neguri golf course, his doors were always open. “There was only one person who said that if a red man entered the field, back workout for women, he would leave, and they invited him to go (to the partner),” says Elvira. So Angelin, as he was called in the club, began to work in the clubroom, to teach golf and put the bug of this sport through the veins of his daughter, who says that “I did not like golf at all But if I started playing it was for giving my father a whim, for seeing him happy. “
“I started playing when I was 16 years old, with 14 clubs from nine different games, it was what I had. He went out to play at six in the morning with the light of the posts. My father made it very difficult for me: I would bury the ball in the bunker so that when it fell there it would be easier for me to get it out, he said… He made me play from small trees with my legs open and I said, ‘I will not fit’, and go if it fit … From my house I practiced the short blows, which is where tournaments are won. My sticks were rusty, I cleaned them in the home sink with the cleaning stone. And the balls … I never released balls, very few times, they were very expensive … -remembers Elvira with nostalgia. When there was some very minced my father melted it with a match and filled the hole ”.
Elvira Larrazáb
In those tournaments Elvira fought for victory from his tremendous humility against the noblest, demonstrating another type of greatness and thus remained unbeatable winning the Spanish Championship from 1952 to 55: “My father told me, ‘do it for me ‘and I am very happy with everything I did for him. When I went to the first tournament all the women in town, who loved me very much, went to church to pray and put candles for me; when I won they welcomed me at my club with lanterns. I said ‘is this going to be like this every year?’ And my father told me, ‘when you don’t win, there will be nothing’ but for four years there were always lanterns. I would go to the delivery, pick up my trophy and then go home, I would not stay for the celebrations, it was another very different time … but very beautiful for me. I knew how to be in my place, and I stayed in my place ”.
All her life she has been surrounded by sports and athletes, which at that time was not very common. “I met my husband on the street, walking with my cousin from Las Arenas to Portugalete . I met him and said, ‘I have to go out with this one’, he turned around, invited me to dance that night and we did not separate in 62 years until he died 4 years ago. Still today he is the international soccer referee with the best track record, who even came out on top in a European Cup final between Milan and Ajax at the Santiago Bernabéu ”.
“We got married, my son Peru was born on June 29 and in August I was already competing, we went to Pedreña in a 600 and my mother took him in a field. He learned to walk on a green, that’s why he has such beautiful walks. Later Iñigo was born and until the day before his birth I was teaching many well-known people, the minister López-Bravo just before his plane crash, the Oriol, many people. I stopped competing because I had been declared a golf professional and I had no one to compete against, I was the only professional… the first and only, so I dedicated myself to teaching. And then Carmen came with her paralysis and that’s when I made the decision to quit golf. “
“ONE DAY HE SAW MY BLASTER AND SAID, ‘I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE IT,’ AND I SAID, ‘WELL, I WOULD GIVE IT TO YOUR BROTHER, BUT NOT YOU,’ AND HE LAUGHED A LOT. SEVE WAS HEAVEN ”
“My daughter needed all the care of a mother. I knew that was my place, and I decided to stay in my place. One day, strolling down the street with her, a woman said to me, ‘If I had such a daughter, I would not take her out on the street’ and I said, ‘That is why God has chosen me.’ I decided to take golf out of my life to dedicate myself to it. I got rid of all but one club … my blaster … my favorite club. How she made him dance! It was wonderful … his face was golden, but from so much work it was dark, dark … I still have it and sometimes I say I’m going to take it to my grave.
“In my family sports have been basic, we are all related in some way. My husband with soccer, my son Iñigo is a bodybuilding champion and has two gyms, my son Peru was a hockey referee, and I as a golfer … the sport teaches a lot, it has fantastic values for life: it is patience, it is overcoming and Above all, fight, and that has been very useful for me to face the paralysis of my daughter Carmen. And with so much sport it is incredible how people change when you talk to them about golf, although I never say who I was ”.
“Now I have a set of sticks behind the door of the living room … I wish I would have had these sticks when I was competing … And I also have all the photos that they put in the tribute exhibition they did to me in Madrid, they are wonderful. I don’t see a lot of golf because it makes me very nostalgic but for what little I know, it is very different from my time ”.
“The mountains do not come together, but people do” he says while speaking of Seve : “It was wonderful to meet him and we had a lot of relationship. When La Arboleda opened, he invited us and there my husband, my daughter Carmen and I went. We talked a lot, and with his brother Manolo too. One day he saw my blaster and said, ‘I would like to have it’ and I said, ‘Well, I would give it to your brother, but not to you’ and he laughed a lot. Seve was heaven ”.
“I HAVE OVERCOME OBSTACLES ALL MY LIFE, I HAVE EVERYTHING EXCEPT DANDRUFF! AND WE MUST GO FORWARD. OTHERS STAY ADDING SUGAR TO THE CHURROS BUT I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE ”
After two strokes and a recent hip fracture, at 86 years old, he continues to move forward with the values that his family and golf instilled in him: “I have overcome obstacles all my life, I have everything except dandruff! and we must go forward. Others stay adding sugar to the churros but I am not one of those people ”.
And going out, like every day, to visit his daughter Carmen to tell each other how much they love each other, he takes a last look back and going back to his last victory 65 years ago “I still remember the blows as if it were yesterday: gully, mound, to green and inside”.
Elvira Larrazábal was and still is today a BIG of Spanish women’s golf and her history, that of the first professional golf player in Spain, is worth telling.
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