Spanish golfer Jimenez breaks right leg

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MALAGA, Spain, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Spanish European Tour golfer Miguel Angel Jimenez said Sunday he suffered a broken leg while skiing and will need up to five months to recover.

The soon-to-be 49-year-old Jimenez said in a statement issued to The Irish Times he was skiing in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in southern Spain when he broke the tibia of his right leg, later undergoing a successful operation in his hometown of Malaga.

"I was skiing in Sierra Nevada, I lost control and fell," Jimenez said. "I felt a huge stab of pain and I knew straight away I had broken something. I broke the top of the tibia in my right leg, just where it meets the knee, and they put in two pins.

"It will take three, four or five months to recover and be able to return to competition."

The injury will likely force the four-time Ryder Cup performer to miss most of the first half of the upcoming 2013 season.

Jimenez last year became the oldest winner in European Tour history when he took the Hong Kong Open at 48 years and 318 days, besting the mark held by Ireland's Des Smyth, the newspaper said.