Seve's pain means unexpected joy for Olazabal. Michael Blair reports...

Magnanimous! That?s what it was. Severiano Ballesteros declined to take his place in The Open Championship at St Andrews this year because he did not feel that he could do justice to the ?best tournament in the world.?

The man who won the Championship thrice, once at the Home of Golf, has not played a competitive round since 2003 and such is his form and his fitness that he could not conceive of making a comeback here.

?I have so much respect for the Open that I really thought it was better to allow somebody else who is more competitive than myself,? said Ballesteros.

Guess who? ?By a coincidence it happens to be Jose Maria Olazabal, a great friend and a great champion. I?m happy that he?s playing and I?m wishing him good luck.?

Olazabal?s days as a ?great champion? are rather more recent than those of Ballesteros.

He won his second US Masters in 1999 and he hasn?t been champion of very much since. But he is going to replace Ballesteros as Europe?s captain in the Seve Cup later this year and the Spaniards are hanging on to a slice of fame that is better represented these days by Sergio Garcia and Miguel Angel Jiminez.

Olly says that he is honoured to take over the Seve Cup captaincy. And Olazabal stressed the point that when his compadre withdrew from the Open, he did not know that he was going to be next in line. ?It means a lot,? said Olazabal.

St Andrews, 1984, he said was his first Open. And he would never forget it.

?I was an amateur. I played the first hole, put it in the creek (creek! how the Scots blanched at that. Burn, man, burn) with the second shot. Then I saw Seve winning.

?I?m really very, very happy to be playing here now.?

Invalid though he may be, Ballesteros has still been able to take a short walk on the Old Course. He?s taken a stroll on the last two holes and pronounces that the fairways are quite soft.

That might not be the consensus view but apparently some rain is due tomorrow. But it?s the breeze that matters, says Seve.

?Without it I won?t say that St Andrews is easy but it?s much more playable. But again, the key is to avoid the bunkers. And to have a very good short game.?

Then the big question: this is Jack Nicklaus?s last Open. Will Ballesteros ever play another?

?Sure,? he said. ?I?m only 48 so I don?t want to be reading in the papers tomorrow that this is the goodbye of Seve Ballesteros.

?I will be back. I don?t know when but I will be back.?