Seve Ballesteros, a golfer with impossible shots and fantastic flair

This was not just any golfer. Normal rules did not apply to this special sporting hero and five-times major champion.

Seve Ballesteros’ game was as striking as the sunset that frames his tee shot at the Wisley Golf Club in Surrey, England, on October 1993.

I look into their eyes, pat their back and wish them luck. But I'm thinking 'I'm going to bury you.'"

If these words had come from any golfer other than Severiano Ballesteros, they would have been dismissed as arrogant, unnecessary and not fit for a gentlemanly game.

But this was not just any golfer. Normal rules did not apply to this special sporting hero.

The news of the Spaniard's death at the age of 54 from brain cancer yesterday should have come as no surprise. He said in an interview with the BBC last year that time was against him, and he had not been seen in public for months.

Then his family released a statement on Friday to say his health had deteriorated. That could mean only one thing.

Many of his fans no doubt believed he still would pull through. As Tony Jacklin, his former Ryder Cup captain, said: "The impossible was an everyday thing for him."

That was certainly true on the golf course.

A tee shot would wildly sail into trees and where most players would think about taking a drop and settling for a bogey, Ballesteros would stand over the ball, which invariably would be stuck in some mud, spot a gap in the trees nobody else could and send his shot onto the green for a birdie chance. Not even Tiger Woods could boast such a sublime short game.

We almost wanted his driver to misfire, just to see what magic he would use to get himself out of trouble.

His most famous shot came in the British Open in 1979, the first of his five major victories, when in a closing round of 70 he hit his drive on the 16th hole into a car park and still made birdie.

Beating brain cancer was one battle that not even Seve was going to win, although it was a testament to his resolve and fighting qualities that he lived for almost three years after being diagnosed with two malignant brain tumours.

His death will be most keenly felt in Europe where he almost single-handedly breathed life into the European Tour and, of course, its Ryder Cup team, which thanks to his leadership turned into winners after years of humiliation.

Golf was dominated by Americans until the handsome and brash 19-year-old from Spain finished second to Johnny Miller in the British Open in 1976. In 1980, he became the first European to win the Masters. The sport had a new Old World superstar who would bring untold numbers of people to the game.

Ballesteros loved to beat the Americans in their own backyard. Sometimes it felt as if he was taking on an entire nation and, indeed, many on that side of the Atlantic never quite understood why he was so loved.

Some saw this young Spaniard as rude and as someone who crossed the line of gamesmanship.

They had a point. More than once in the Ryder Cup did an American player discover that his opponent was suffering from a previously undetected loud cough which he heard on his backswing. It normally happened if Europe were in trouble.

Nobody else would get away with that sort of behaviour. If Sir Nick Faldo had tried this he would have been forever cast as a pariah. But, then, someone like Faldo could only dream of Seve's popularity

I was fortunate enough to meet Ballesteros once, at St Andrews in 2005, when his best days were well behind him, a result of chronic back pain. But at a reception with some competition winners, all male and middle-aged, he still had a glint in his eye and those he shook hands with reacted like a giddy eight-year-old girl upon meeting the latest pop heartthrob.

Seve Ballesteros wasn't the best golfer who ever lived, but he was the most exciting and the most charismatic. He will be missed more than can be said.