'My new name...Seve Mulligan'

Seve Ballesteros made a public appearance in Spain, his first since an operation to remove a brain tumor last December, and likened his improbable recovery to the British Open that he won at St. Andrews in 1984.

"My recovery is like the Open, when the ball hovered on the lip of the hole," he said. "With all my energy I willed the ball to drop in and it did. With that ability and the doctors' hands, I am here now.

"The first thing that I told the doctors after I woke up from the anesthetic was that my new name was Seve Mulligan. Nine months ago my life was hanging by a thread. I feel now like I have a mulligan in life."

Here is the Times Online's story.

-- John Strege