That's how cancer-stricken Ballesteros says his life was, nine months ago
That's how cancer-stricken Ballesteros says his life was, nine months ago
Seve Ballesteros made his first official public appearance yesterday since undergoing life-saving surgery to remove a brain tumour last December.
The 52-year-old was speaking at the launch of a cancer federation that will bear his name in Spain and admits he has felt like he has been given a second chance at life. "The first thing that I told the doctors after I woke up from the anaesthetic was that my new name was Seve Mulligan," he said in reference to the golf rule which permits a player to retake a shot. "Nine months ago my life was hanging by a thread. Now it's like I have a mulligan in life."
The five-time major winner was diagnosed with a brain tumour after losing consciousness at Madrid Airport last October.
He spent the next 66 days in Madrid's La Paz hospital where he underwent four operations before returning home in Bilbao on December 9. Ballesteros has been undergoing chemotherapy since and yesterday got the chance to praise the doctors who performed the operationsu00a0 on him describing their work as "a miracle." He also likened his fight against cancer to the birdie putt he sank on the 18th at St Andrews to win the 1984 Open, which he believes required a similar amount of will power. He added to BBC Sport: "My recovery is like The Open in 1984 when the ball hovered on the lip of the hole. With all my energy I willed it to drop in and it did. With that ability and the doctors' hands, I am here now."
