A throng of shipbuilders, as opposed to Augusta habitués, had come along by way of making the most of a half day at the local shipyard. Not all of them were au fait with the niceties of the game and when, at one point, a steward asked if they could make way for the players, one young lad charged on regardless. “Blow the players,” he yelled over his shoulder, “I’ve come to see the match.”
Amid the canvas-chair hullabaloo at Augusta, Woosnam asked Phil "Wobbly", his loyal caddie, for the yardage. Usually, Wobbly would deliver his instructions with an authority all his own. On this occasion, he could do no better than mutter a hesitant, “I think it’s 162 yards.”
Woosnam took an eight-iron, hit it a little heavy, and walked up the hill to find his ball on the left apron of the green’s lower tier.
Watson, meantime, had knocked his second into sand before hitting a bunker shot which looked to Woosnam’s concerned eye as if it might bounce into the hole. It did indeed touch down beside the flag but scampered some 25 feet past.
Woosnam, who putted up before the crowd had settled, left himself with the six-footer for his par and, once Watson had missed his 25-footer with room to spare, he settled over the putt which would win him his Green Jacket.
The line was just outside right lip and, almost as soon as the ball left the putter-face, Woosnam knew he was home and dry. In keeping with his boxing background, he gave the air a mighty punch – and pulled a muscle in the process.
In referring back to how the rest of 1991 was something of an anti-climax, Woosnam returned to the subject of Rory McIlroy,
"It’s not easy to be the world number one,” he volunteered.
Well though it had served him in that Augusta week, he had grown to hate it.
"It could be,” he suggested, “that Rory hasn’t been finding it a ball of fun either. It can all become a bit much. For myself, I couldn’t stand the publicity and the constant scrutiny.
"All I ever wanted was to be able to go to the pub and enjoy a couple of beers in peace."
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