José María Olazábal, a two-time winner at Augusta, has noted how the first-tee Masters’ experience never gets any easier.
"There’s never been a time when I haven’t had butterflies,” he said. “In my first year, in 1985, I was the reigning British Amateur champion, which meant that they were always going to give me someone great to play with. I got Arnold Palmer and I was shaking like the proverbial leaf. Arnold did everything he could to put me at ease and I’ve been grateful to him for that ever since.”
The Spaniard chuckled before mentioning that Palmer’s assistance was to no avail; his first-round was dire.
Twelve years on and Olazábal found himself in the Palmer role as he was called to shepherd a champion from the amateur ranks. The young man in question was none other than the previous year’s US Amateur champion, Tiger Woods.
Woods did not need too much shepherding. Instead, it was the Spaniard who felt all at sea.
After I had hit my opening drive,” remembered Olazábal, “I saw that Tiger was taking aim on the bunker on the right. It was into a fairly stiff breeze and I asked myself what on earth he was thinking of. ‘Surely’, I said, ‘he can’t get over it.’
"In the event, he cleared it by 10 yards and left himself with no more than 90 yards to the green. It was incredible.
"When he did the same again at the second, hammering his ball a million miles past mine, I stopped looking and I stopped listening.”
Forget the contestants for a minute. The first morning at Augusta has much the same feel for everyone else, including the spectators.
It is still half-dark when the patrons hurry to join the queue in a manner to suggest they are fearful of being late for church. The reason that no one lingers is because each person is as anxious as the next to snatch a prime site from which to watch the honorary starters - it was Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player last year - hitting from the first tee.
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