"Seve was golf's Elvis," says McGinley

Paul McGinley has described Seve Ballesteros as the Elvis Presley of golf

Speaking in Dublin recently McGinley said: "He means the same to me as he means to everybody. Growing up as a kid, watching him in the Irish Opens at Royal Dublin and Portmarnock, Seve was the one. He was the Elvis Presley of golf back then.

"It was a different world back then because we didn’t have golf on TV like we do nowadays and when you saw a superstar it had a different effect to seeing Tiger Woods now because you see Tiger every week on TV. It was a different era where you saw only half a dozen tournaments a year on TV. People look back at the Irish Open and think about it in the rose-tinted glasses kind of way. A lot of  it was because golf and sport wasn’t exposed the way it is now."

The Spanish maestro has yet to decide whether or not he will travel to Paris this weekend to see the Vivendi Trophy clash between McGinley's Britain and Ireland squad and Thomas Bjorn's Continental Europeans.

A message sent to the 20 players was read out to them by McGinley, who said: "It's quite an emotional letter and there was a lot of thought that went into it. A lot of points he made were not just about golf, but about life and the position we hold in life - how lucky we are to be who we are and doing what we are doing. And to enjoy it because time flies very quickly.

"If you can bring his spirit into the team I think that's all I want to add to the week. Inspiration was the word. He's a special person and has done a huge amount for The European Tour as everybody knows. He wants to leave a legacy and the Seve Trophy is something that he really believes in.

"I spoke to him twice last week and I know he will do everything he can to be here. He said he is playing the toughest tournament of his life - and he also said he will win."