Fernando Chaves, 67 years old, is an institution in the world of golf education, coach of European Tour players such as Estefanía Knuth, Paula Martí, Fernando Roca and Ivo Giner, among others, and a ‘totem’ in the CG Sant Cugat, the ‘dean’ of the golf clubs in Catalonia, who came to him due to life circumstances 58 years ago, and 51 of them giving classes…
Until today. He didn’t go to school and when the Civil Guard closed his parents’ bar (they were from dawn to dusk) in a mining town in Teruel, they decided to travel to Barcelona to look for work. It was lucky. They fell into a little house in El Pinar, near the club, with a room and a dining room where 8 people lived, and the owner told her mother why “they didn’t go to the club downstairs.
They play sports there and they drag carts and they pay them. ‘It was a miracle'”, he assures. At the age of 13 he was clear that he wanted to play golf. “By caddying we supported the family (his brothers Vicente and Jesús have also been golfers and teachers).
I became a pro at 16, very young, and they put me in the School and that’s how it all started” This past weekend he ‘retired’ with a Pro-am organized in the club that has been his second home.
Fernando Chaves, statements
“Rahm? I live from this and if ten Rahms came out, better for us.
Think that when Seve came out, and we were teaching, well, it was noticeable, more people came to play. But one thing, Jon, with all due respect, you’re not telling me what Seve was telling me. Like Seve no one. What he transmitted and he was capable of doing with a stick in his hands, none, really.
The shots that he imagined, that he hit, that he saw through unlikely holes, how he was capable of leaving the ball near the flag, taking out a bunker with a 5-iron when we tried, and not even kidding…. He was no longer number one in the world because he was like he was and although he was offered to play in the US, he didn’t want to, like Olazábal. ‘I am from Europe’, and I play here he said”
