Golf: Sporting world's grief for Seve

Seve Ballesteros, a five-time major champion whose passion and gift for imaginative shot-making invigorated European golf and the Ryder Cup, has died from complications of a cancerous brain tumour. He was 54.

A statement on Ballesteros' website yesterday said the golfing great died peacefully at 2.10am local time, surrounded by his family at his home in Pedrena, in northern Spain.

Ballesteros was as inspirational in Europe as Arnold Palmer was in America, a handsome figure who feared no shot and often played from where no golfer had ever been.

In a long list of spectacular shots, perhaps the most memorable came from a parking lot next to the 16th fairway at Royal Lytham & St Annes in the 1979 British Open. Leading by two shots in the final round, he drove into the car park, had a car removed to get his free drop, then fired his second shot within 5m and made birdie on his way to his first major.

"He was a man who got into trouble. Only for Seve, there was no such thing as trouble," Gary Player once said. "He could manufacture shots like a genius."

Ballesteros fainted in a Madrid airport while waiting to board a flight to Germany in October 2008 and was subsequently diagnosed with the brain tumour. He underwent four separate operations, including a six-hour procedure to remove the tumour and reduce swelling around the brain. After leaving hospital, his treatment continued with chemotherapy.

Ballesteros looked thin and pale while making several public appearances in 2009 after being given what he referred to as the "mulligan of my life". He was rarely seen in public after falling off a golf cart and hitting his head in March last year.

Such was his stature, even out of the public eye, European players celebrated his most recent birthday - the Saturday of the Masters - like it was a national holiday.

For such greatness, his career was relatively short because of back injuries. Ballesteros won a record 50 times on the European tour, first as a 19-year-old in the Dutch Open, and his final victory when 38 at the 1995 Peugeot Open in his native Spain. That also was his last year playing in the Ryder Cup, where he had a 20-12-5 record in eight appearances. He was captain in 1997 when Europe won at Valderrama.

Despite his five majors and 87 titles around the world, Ballesteros will forever will be linked to the Ryder Cup. He was the reason the Ryder Cup was expanded in 1979 to include continental Europe, and they finally beat the US in 1985 to begin more than two decades of dominance. While others have played in more matches and won more points, no player better represents the spirit and desire of Europe than Ballesteros.

He announced his retirement in a tearful press conference at Carnoustie before the 2007 British Open. Ballesteros had returned to Augusta National that year to play the Masters one last time, but shot 86-80 to finish last. After turning 50, he tried one Champions Tour event, but again came in last. His back was ailing, his eyes were no longer as lively, and his best game had left him years earlier.

"I don't have the desire," Ballesteros said.

That desire was as big a part of his game as any shot he manufactured from the trees, sand, just about anywhere.

Born on April 9, 1957 in the tiny town of Pedrena, Spain, he learned golf with only one club - a 3-iron - that forced him to create shots most players could never imagine.

Ballesteros first gained major notoriety at 19 in the final round of the British Open at Royal Birkdale, where he threaded a shot through the bunkers and onto the green at the 18th hole, finishing second to Johnny Miller and in a tie with Jack Nicklaus.

"He invented shots around the green," Nicklaus said in the weeks before Ballesteros was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1999. "You don't find many big hitters like him with that kind of imagination and touch around the green."

- AP