Ballesteros set to make golf return

Seve Ballesteros is set to end 17 months out of golf in the Spanish Open at San Roque, starting on April 14.

Unable to play in next week’s Masters because of a right knee injury, the 47-year-old former world number one has now added his name to the list of entries for his national championship – the event which saw the last of his 87 victories 10 years ago.

Ballesteros’s last competitive appearance was for the Seve Trophy match at El Saler in November 2003 when his Continental Europe side lost to Colin Montgomerie’s Britain and Ireland team.

Early last season he feared an arthritic back condition would prematurely end his career but by July he was starting to sound more optimistic and his main hope for this year is to return to the British Open Championship at St Andrews.

It was there that Ballesteros enjoyed arguably his finest moment in 1984, denying Tom Watson a record-equalling sixth title and winning the second of his three British Open titles.

There have been few sadder sights in sport than his decline since. He has not made a halfway cut in a major since the 1996 Masters and has not played the British Open since Lytham in 2001, the season he fell outside Europe’s top 200 by making only five cuts from 19 starts.

He has also had a marriage break-up recently and was the subject of a European Tour investigation into an incident at his home club involving Jose Maria Zamora, the official with whom he had had an earlier row over slow play.