 "Danny Willet, an unexpected and worthy Masters winner")
Freezing. Light frost on fairways and greens. Sparkling blue, crisp, early morning. Jet contrails crisscrossing the sky before the mild breeze dissipates them. As play commences, a thin cloud curtain is drawn from horizon to horizon, reducing light and wind, and creating near perfect playing conditions. The scoreboard should blush deep red.
First off, it was good to speculate for a while that Bernard Langer could or would win. With the high winds, that equalised the advantage that the long driving youngsters had over Langer's experience, considerably abating, those with big booming drives prevailed; in an effort to keep up, Langer lost his rhythm and perished, scoring his worst card of the tournament when it should have been his best. A lot of other players flattered to deceive and pretty soon it looked like a one horse race. Kaufman, overcome at the august company he was in and the burden of being the first rookie with a real chance to win after Zoeller in 1979, simply drifted away to a confidence shattering 81 in pretty good playing conditions. Matsuyama showed real class by advancing rapidly but the weight of possibly being the first Japanese to win a Major, leave aside the Masters, played havoc with his expectation of himself and his concentration. Paul Casey and Justin Rose played really well but started too far back to get into contention (however, the English contingent did really well this year).
The JD-DJ (Jason Day-Justin Johnson) show, despite great expectations, got off to a dreary start. Neither could get it going and they just kept pace with each other even as Jordan stretched his lead to six shots from three at the turn. It seemed that it was all over bar the shouting, until fate played a hand. Clearly discombobulated with bogeys on ten and eleven, missing putts of the type that he had been making all week, he swung poorly, weakening his left arm without fully turning, and fell into the (ch)arms of Jezebel or Golden Bell, the keeper of the par three twelfth hole, at the cusp of Amen Corner, right into the creek. Unbelievably, and certainly uncharacteristically, Jordan virtually repeated that same shot from his drop, weakening his left arm again thereby shortening his swing, taking a huge divot and basically chunking the shot. Two visits to Rae's Creek caused Jordan a quintuple; a double would have still kept him ahead in the game with a very good chance.
Our winner, Willett, has been through the mill of endless training, coaching, playing, competing and winning as an amateur, wisely relocating to the US where competition is far more intense, and then apprenticing in the European tour before returning to the US to win laurels, speaks well of his rather strict and stoic upbringing and of course of Chubby Chandler who managed him throughout (he managed Rory too in the early days). Truly, he is a worthy winner although this win will probably be more recognised as Jordan's failure rather than his success. You have to count his flawless five under 65 as a superb finishing round.
Danny Willet - 2016 Masters champion
This collapse of Jordan's will rank high right alongside those of Greg Norman and Rory except that Jordan already has a green jacket and they don't. This reverse will be talked about for ever but the simple answer is that big leads cause unnecessary defensive positions to be taken, i.e. a change in one's approach from an already winning game to something less good, and that too when coming in to that part of the course which traditionally yields more birdies. Except that sometimes it goes wrong! It happened to Oosthuizen in 2012 after his double eagle on the second (incidentally, this year he in-offed an ace on the par three sixteenth's billiard table like green) and opened the door for Bubba to walk through. Don't talk so much about the collapse Jordan, you'll simply paralyse your mind with endless analysis. You have to get this monster out of your head and know that you have at least 25 years of excellent Championship golf ahead of you. Know also that winning requires a Mantle of Grace.
So, just when the audience was leaving the theatre out of impending boredom, the real drama unfolded, as always promised. Who could possibly have expected or predicted this ending? Thus it caught everyone by surprise. It had all the elements of courage and bravery, human folly and frailties, different side stories, despondency and despair, elation and ecstasy, laughter and sorrow, all in the spin of just thirty minutes. In the end, an unheralded but always likely hero appeared to take the final bow at the curtain.
Till next year then, sayonara!
First off, it was good to speculate for a while that Bernard Langer could or would win. With the high winds, that equalised the advantage that the long driving youngsters had over Langer's experience, considerably abating, those with big booming drives prevailed; in an effort to keep up, Langer lost his rhythm and perished, scoring his worst card of the tournament when it should have been his best. A lot of other players flattered to deceive and pretty soon it looked like a one horse race. Kaufman, overcome at the august company he was in and the burden of being the first rookie with a real chance to win after Zoeller in 1979, simply drifted away to a confidence shattering 81 in pretty good playing conditions. Matsuyama showed real class by advancing rapidly but the weight of possibly being the first Japanese to win a Major, leave aside the Masters, played havoc with his expectation of himself and his concentration. Paul Casey and Justin Rose played really well but started too far back to get into contention (however, the English contingent did really well this year).
The JD-DJ (Jason Day-Justin Johnson) show, despite great expectations, got off to a dreary start. Neither could get it going and they just kept pace with each other even as Jordan stretched his lead to six shots from three at the turn. It seemed that it was all over bar the shouting, until fate played a hand. Clearly discombobulated with bogeys on ten and eleven, missing putts of the type that he had been making all week, he swung poorly, weakening his left arm without fully turning, and fell into the (ch)arms of Jezebel or Golden Bell, the keeper of the par three twelfth hole, at the cusp of Amen Corner, right into the creek. Unbelievably, and certainly uncharacteristically, Jordan virtually repeated that same shot from his drop, weakening his left arm again thereby shortening his swing, taking a huge divot and basically chunking the shot. Two visits to Rae's Creek caused Jordan a quintuple; a double would have still kept him ahead in the game with a very good chance.
Our winner, Willett, has been through the mill of endless training, coaching, playing, competing and winning as an amateur, wisely relocating to the US where competition is far more intense, and then apprenticing in the European tour before returning to the US to win laurels, speaks well of his rather strict and stoic upbringing and of course of Chubby Chandler who managed him throughout (he managed Rory too in the early days). Truly, he is a worthy winner although this win will probably be more recognised as Jordan's failure rather than his success. You have to count his flawless five under 65 as a superb finishing round.
Danny Willet - 2016 Masters champion
This collapse of Jordan's will rank high right alongside those of Greg Norman and Rory except that Jordan already has a green jacket and they don't. This reverse will be talked about for ever but the simple answer is that big leads cause unnecessary defensive positions to be taken, i.e. a change in one's approach from an already winning game to something less good, and that too when coming in to that part of the course which traditionally yields more birdies. Except that sometimes it goes wrong! It happened to Oosthuizen in 2012 after his double eagle on the second (incidentally, this year he in-offed an ace on the par three sixteenth's billiard table like green) and opened the door for Bubba to walk through. Don't talk so much about the collapse Jordan, you'll simply paralyse your mind with endless analysis. You have to get this monster out of your head and know that you have at least 25 years of excellent Championship golf ahead of you. Know also that winning requires a Mantle of Grace.
So, just when the audience was leaving the theatre out of impending boredom, the real drama unfolded, as always promised. Who could possibly have expected or predicted this ending? Thus it caught everyone by surprise. It had all the elements of courage and bravery, human folly and frailties, different side stories, despondency and despair, elation and ecstasy, laughter and sorrow, all in the spin of just thirty minutes. In the end, an unheralded but always likely hero appeared to take the final bow at the curtain.
Till next year then, sayonara!