The Masters Interview: Nick Faldo

Your first golfing memory was watching the 1971 Masters as a 13-year-old. Eight years later you made your debut at Augusta. What are your memories of that experience?
It was very intimidating, it really was. I arrived and although I’d seen Augusta on television I really had no idea of the scale of the place. The first thing that strikes you is the undulations, which get flattened out on TV – the course is really very hilly. But the conditioning too is amazing. However many hundred acres of just perfect fairways – that was remarkable seeing for the first time. In those days the Masters was an invitational tournament in the truest sense of the word and the looks I received from some of the old boys – as if to say, ‘Who's that guy?’ – was daunting too.

But you seemed to have figured it out OK by making the cut. What advice would you give a Masters debutant? It is possible to get over the mystique of Augusta on your first trip there?
I don’t think you ever get over the mystique. My advice for anyone making the debut is to arrive very early. Go the week before, get settled in, figure out your route from the locker room to the first tee, learn how everything works and so on – things like will help you feel a lot more comfortable by the time it comes to hit your first tee shot. The key to Augusta is the greens. Certainly I’d never played on greens like them before and it takes a long time to appreciate that you need to play different types of chips than you’re used to because of their slopes and speed. I remember practicing one- and two-yard chips because a lot of the time that was the only way to stop the ball anywhere near the hole.

You haven’t played the tournament for the past few years because of commentary commitments with CBS. Don’t you ever get the urge to say to them, ‘Sorry guys, I fancy playing this year’?
[Laughs] No. I love being involved at the Masters with what I do now for CBS and I get a great deal of satisfaction from it too. My playing days are behind me – and to be honest, the Masters is not the place to go if your game isn’t firing on all cylinders. You’ll get caught out very quickly. I love that I can still be involved in the tournament though.