{"id":555375,"date":"2026-01-31T03:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/555375\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T03:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:21:09","slug":"missing-statue-of-golf-legend-ballesteros-found-chopped-in-pieces-in-spain-golf-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/555375\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing statue of golf legend Ballesteros found chopped in pieces in Spain | Golf News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man has been arrested by police in Spain after they recovered a stolen statue of the late golfer Seve Ballesteros.<\/p>\n

Published On 31 Jan 202631 Jan 2026<\/p>\n

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A \u200cstatue of the late golfer Seve Ballesteros, which \u200dhad vanished \u200dfrom his hometown of Pedrena in northern Spain\u2019s Cantabria region, was found chopped into pieces as the alleged thief prepared to sell it for its \u2060bronze, police have said.<\/p>\n

Valued at about 30,000 euros ($35,820) \u200bbut holding significant sentimental importance for locals and \u200dfans, the statue was discovered in a storage room in Santander. It had been cut in half at the waist.<\/p>\n

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While the \u200dtorso and \u2060head remained intact, the arms were broken into several pieces.<\/p>\n

A 22-year-old man with a criminal record for copper theft was arrested on Thursday, police revealed on Friday, adding that more individuals could be involved.<\/p>\n

\"AA screengrab from a handout video shows pieces of a statue of Seve Ballesteros, a late Spanish professional golfer, recovered by members of the Spanish law enforcement, in Santander, Spain [Reuters]<\/p>\n

Police had focused their investigation on metal trading centres, suspecting the \u200bthieves planned to sell the bronze \u200cfor profit.<\/p>\n

The 100kg (220.46-pound) statue, depicting Ballesteros in a signature pose celebrating his 1984 British Open win at St Andrews in Scotland, \u200cwas torn from its base in La Barqueria Park earlier this month before being \u200cdragged across grass and dismembered for \u2060transport.<\/p>\n

Created in 2009 by sculptor Salvador Garcia Ceballos, it was permanently installed in Pedrena in 2017.<\/p>\n

Ballesteros, who won five major titles during his \u200ccareer and became a fan favourite for his capacity for digging himself out of trouble on the golf course, \u200ddied in 2011 aged 54 after a battle with cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been arrested by police in Spain after they recovered a stolen statue of the late…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":555376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[440,1430,50,128,1926,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-555375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-golf","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-spain","12":"tag-sport","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115987564704492242","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}