Severiano Ballesteros had already won the Masters twice, in 1980 and 1983, and had recently become Nike’s first golf ambassador. On the first two days of the 1986 Masters, he wore a visor he had bought in the Augusta National pro-shop, but on the weekend that changed. Seve cut two Nike labels from his shirts and fixed them over the visor’s logo, and just like that, the Double Swoosh visor was born.
Now you can wear the iconic visor.
Exactly four decades later a limited number of Nike visors, inspired Seve's original creation, are being released to commemorate an event that embodies one of those small but telling details that captured the spirit of the Spanish golf legend — instinct and creativity on the biggest stage in golf.
“Dad always understood the moment and was very creative,” says his son Javier, President of the Seve Ballesteros Foundation. “Nike had just signed him and he wanted to represent them properly, especially knowing he would be in contention on the weekend. There wasn’t a visor ready, so he simply created one himself. That was Dad — instinctive and creative. Forty years later, it’s still a special memory, not just because of the visor, but because of how he approached everything.”
Seve would go on to carry a three-shot lead on the back nine during one of the most dramatic Sundays in Masters history, before ultimately being overtaken by Jack Nicklaus. In some pictures from that day, you can still see a small “M” beneath the swooshes, a detail that reflects the improvised nature of the moment.
The ‘Double Swoosh’ visor has since become a symbol of both Seve’s personality and a formative moment in Nike’s early presence in professional golf, and even though Nicklaus would go on to write history by becoming the oldest Masters winner to date, the image of Ballesteros leading the Masters, wearing a visor he had improvised himself, became part of golfing folklore.
To mark the 40-year anniversary, a limited run of visors inspired by the original will be released via nike.com and sevecollection.com.
