Police are investigating the disappearance of a statue honouring Spanish golfing legend Seve Ballesteros from his birthplace of Pedreña, near Santander in Spain’s northern region of Cantabria.
The Marina de Cudeyo town council announced the incident on Sunday via social media, calling it ‘an unfortunate event’ and indicating that the circumstances point to criminal involvement. ‘Everything indicates that it was a theft,’ the council said.
According to local police, the life-size statue vanished at some point over the weekend. Officers are now working to establish who may be responsible and to recover the monument, which has long been a landmark in the small coastal village.
‘If anyone has observed any suspicious activity, especially in the last 24 hours, please report it to the police,’ the town council appealed in a Facebook post.
The bronze statue, located in La Barquería Park, was created by sculptor Salvador García Ceballos in 2009 and permanently installed in 2017. It portrays Ballesteros in one of his most iconic moments, fist raised in celebration after his victory at the 1984 British Open at St Andrews.
Ballesteros was one of golf’s leading figures from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. He won 90 international tournaments in his career, including five major championships between 1979 and 1988; The Open Championship three times and the Masters Tournament twice.
Ballesteros died of brain cancer in 2011, aged 54.
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