Seve

by Richard Goldstein

Seve Ballesteros, the charismatic Spanish golfer who won the Masters twice and the British Open three times and helped propel Europe’s rise in the Ryder Cup competition with the United States, died early Saturday at his home in northern Spain, where his struggle with brain cancer had gained wide attention in the sports world. He was 54.

Ballesteros had surgery for a cancerous brain tumor in October 2008 and had been cared for at his home in the coastal town of Pedreña, where he died early Saturday morning, his family said in a statement on his Web site.

Ballesteros was only 19 and virtually unknown when he was thrust into the golf spotlight in July 1976. He was on the final hole of the British Open at Royal Birkdale, on England’s western coast, when he hit a brilliant chip shot between two bunkers that landed four feet from the cup. He then sank his putt to tie Jack Nicklaus for second place behind Johnny Miller after having led for three rounds.

That daring chip, and the shots before it that rescued him after wild drives into dunes and bushes, caught the golf world’s attention and defined the kind of game that made Ballesteros one of the finest players of his era.

With a passion for perfection, an uncommon intensity and a brilliant short game, Ballesteros won five major championships in a 10-year span. At Augusta National in 1980, he became the first European and, at 23, the youngest player to win the Masters. (Tiger Woods became the youngest in 1997 when he won the Masters at 21.) Ballesteros won the Masters again in 1983, captured the British Open in 1979, 1984 and 1988, and won the World Match Play Championship five times.

“I think he comes as close to a complete player as anybody I’ve ever seen,” his fellow golfer Ben Crenshaw told Sports Illustrated in 1985. “He can hit every shot in the bag and do it with the style and look of a champion.”

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