Ballesteros dies at 54

MADRID – Severiano Ballesteros, 54, died early today of cancer, which spread through his body from a brain tumor. It proved to be the greatest obstacle in his life – a lot more powerful than the bunkers he majestically escaped in his days of glory as a professional golfer.

“During my whole career, I was one of the best (at) saving obstacles on the golf course. Now, I want to use all my strength to be the best as I stand before the toughest game of my life,” Ballesteros said when he first came out and said that he was ill in 2008.

And for a while it seemed that he had managed to overcome the odds and beat the sickness. After undergoing two lengthy operations to remove the brain tumor, he left the hospital in December 2008 and underwent four courses of chemotherapy in 2009.

In June of that year he said that it was a “miracle” to be alive. He also announced the formation of a foundation that was to research cancer, focusing mainly on brain tumors, but also providing support for young golfers.

A planned trip to the British Open last year had to be called off on doctor’s orders and on Friday his family issued a press release saying that his neurological condition had “suffered a severe deterioration.”

Ballesteros, born on April 9, 1957, was one of a select group of athletes able to change the sporting life of a whole country.

His surprising success at the 1979 British Open and a year later at the Masters in Augusta garnered “Seve” huge influence around the world – so much so that he changed the history of his sport.

“The mixture of unbounded brilliance and unsurpassed charisma made the Spaniard unique and enabled him to transform British and European golf,” the British newspaper The Observer wrote of Ballesteros in 2007, in a feature to mark his 50th birthday.

“Now Seve Ballesteros is gone from the golf course, leaving us with only memories. But no man has created more; golf was touched by greatness during his time,” The Observer said.

Two Masters and three British Open championships gave him the aura of a winner, as solid as his less-than-pleasant character, which led him to be more of an idol in the Anglo-Saxon world than in his native Spain.

His creativity on the course was essential for a man who rose from humble origins, became a caddie in the exclusive golf club in his native Pedrena – a small town in the northern Spanish region of Cantabria – and who, thanks to the 3-iron that his brother gave him as a present, loved golf like few people.