MADRID -- 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 tumor. He was 54.

A statement on Ballesteros' website early Saturday said the golf great died peacefully at 2:10 a.m. local time, surrounded by his family at his home in Pedrena, in northern Spain.

Ballesteros, a two-time Masters champion and three-time winner of the British Open, 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.
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