The Joys of Spring

Another interview that sticks in my mind was that given by Greg Norman after his meltdown against Nick Faldo in 1996, eighty-four years to the day after the Titanic had hit an iceberg. He'd lead by six shots going into the final round, but after a soggy double bogey at the 12th, he was behind. Faldo, now the hunted rather than the hunter, was unsure about his second shot to the par-5 13th. Was it a 5-wood or a 2-iron? The discussion between him and caddie Fanny Sunesson took all of five minutes, and we saw and heard all of it.

It was a masterstroke by the TV director, who would normally have rushed off to watch Joe Soap's two-foot tap-in for bogey at the 17th, but this was the pivotal moment in the round. It was a two-horse race by then, and this was all that mattered. Norman shot 78 to Faldo's 67, and afterwards he covered himself in glory with his honesty, dignity and sportsmanship. He didn't know what had happened, but he knew that he would come back and win "this thing" one day. If ever there was a sporting injustice, it is that Greg Norman does not own a green jacket.

Every year there is a media draw for a lucky handful of scribes who will play the course on the Monday afterwards, set up exactly as the combatants had experienced the day before. Many Augusta regulars had been going for years and their names had never come up. Amazingly I hit the jackpot first time out. I then had to scurry around finding balls and gloves and a decent set of clubs, and beg David Graham (a two-time major champion and Augusta employee) for an early tee time so that I'd make my flight. We set off from the first with daylight still considering its options.

The raucousness of the thronging patrons the night before had been replaced by an eerie silence, broken only by the hysterical giggling of Helen Alfredsson, (who I was later to share a mic with at the 1995 Ryder Cup) who was also about to get her first taste of Augusta National. We made fairly serene progress to the ninth, then ran up against the backlog created by the 10th tee starters, many of whom were Japanese. They knew this was going to be their only chance to walk inside the ropes and nothing was going to hurry them. Group photographs at every landmark were de rigueur, and it was out with the long lens around Amen Corner for those award-winning snaps. Anxious glances at the timepiece slightly took the gilt off the gingerbread as my departure time got ever nearer. I am very lucky though. I got a second bite at the cherry a few years later, the first time I went there for BBC TV. That day I got around without a single three putt. There were plenty of chips and two-putts though!

Somehow the Masters always seems to produce drama, romance and intrigue. Remember Tiger's "rules infraction" last year, and Australia finally getting a green jacket? This year the tournament ends on the 13th of April. Hopefully there'll be no "Titanic", but maybe another anniversary will be significant? On 13th April 1612 Miyamoto Musashi defeated Sasaki Kojiro at Funajima Island. So, a first Japanese winner perhaps? In 1742, Handel's Messiah was given its world premiere in Dublin. Rory McIlroy to take the title home to the Emerald Isle? In 1796, the first elephant ever seen in America arrived from India. There are no Indians in the field as of this moment so look for, err, an "elephant"? More recently, in 1964 Sidney Poitier became the first African-American male to win the Best Actor Oscar for his role in "Lilies of the Field", while on 13th April 1997 Tiger Woods became the youngest golfer, and first African-American, to win the Masters.

So Woods crashes through the field (of lilies?) on Sunday like a bull elephant, to defeat Hideki Matsuyama in a play-off, whereupon the patrons burst into a spontaneous rendering of the “Hallelujah Chorus”, as the academy/committee award Tiger his fifteenth Oscar.

It's all utterly predictable.