Hot topic: What's your magical Masters moment?
Tell us on the forum and we'll pick one to get a unique prize direct from the home of the US Masters - Augusta National Golf Club.
Masters leap for joy by Phil Mickelson
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Most of us passionate golfers will be glued to our TV screens this week to witness the first major championship of 2005 – the US Masters from Augusta.
Traditionally – and somewhat ironically - this week also heralds the emergence of the ‘Great British fair-weather golfer’ when, inspired by the immaculate and magical Augusta National course, the 80 –per-cent of handicap golfers who never play in the winter months, fetch out their clubs in anticipation of another season.
It’s a bit like Wimbledon fortnight when suddenly the high profile of the ‘world tennis championships’ fills up the municipal courts around the currently which lie dormant for almost 50 weeks of the year.
Or it’s equivalent to the Grand National or Derby weeks when suddenly almost everyone becomes a horse-racing tipster and housewives and office workers enter the shadowy world of the betting shop.
As I may have mentioned before I have been fortunate to have attended five US Masters tournaments and each champion I’ve seen – Ian Woosnam (1991), Fred Couples (1992), Jose-Maria Olazabal (1994), Tiger Woods (1997) and Vijay Singh (2000) – brought a special tingle to the event.
But the images I can recall from watching the tournament live on television are equally vivid - from Raymond Floyd’s unbelievable horseshoe birdie putt from 50 feet at the 16th hole to secure victory in a monochrome 1976, to Phil Mickelson’s colourful leap of incredulity on holing out at the 18th last April.
My other magic TV Masters moments including Sandy Lyle’s little jig in holing for a winning birdie in 1988, a tearful Ben Crenshaw in 1995 and, a year later, Nick Faldo’s last hole hug for vanquished Greg Norman, when the Englishman claimed his third green jacket in 1996.
Sadly some of those other runners-up in the last 30 years have sunk with very little trace, including Rod Funseth (one shot behind Gary Player in 1978), Gibby Gilbert (Seve Ballesteros, 1980), Chip Beck (Bernhard Langer, 1993) and Len Mattiace (Mike Weir, 2003).
So the topic for this week is for you to tell us your own favourite magical Masters TV moment – a poignant memory that had you on the edge of your armchair.
Tell us on the forum why the moment was significant and as a special prize I’ll send a winner, selected randomly from the total entry, a prize direct from Augusta National Golf Club that he or she will treasure.
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Not a moment so much as a presence: Costantino Rocca in the 1997 Masters. Woods was stomping on to inexorable victory -- a remarkably impressive thing to watch, very moving in a way because of his youth, and the fact that this boy who had been hyped so much was in fact proving that all the talk had been for real.
But still, my strongest memories of that Tournament are all of Rocca, whom I had not known before -- I had been only an infrequent watcher of golf on TV at that point and had managed to miss the Open in 1995 (though I've since seen the famous bits!).
There was something about him -- and he was really in contention after the Saturday -- that began to draw me into golf in a way I never had been before (despite being a fan of Seve, Sandy and José Maria Olazabal in particular). The announcers were talking a bit about him, of his working class origins and how hard he had worked and here he was at this cathedral of golf, running into history.
I liked his face, liked his deportment, and liked his game, which was still pretty healthy in those days. And the sort of iconoclasm I tend to have was perhaps resisting Woods even as I was touched by his wonderful adventure; I don't know that I was prescient enough to anticipate the production number Woods would become, let alone the chilly, remote though brilliant player. All I knew was that I would have loved to see Rocca stop this train...I knew it could not hurt Woods, as he would come again, but that it would have been the ultimate magic for me if Rocca had won.
Afterwards, I mentioned to a non-golf friend that I had been watching it, and that I had had these thoughts. She had been watching with her boyfriend, as it was rather a historical event, and she agreed with my comment about Rocca: "What a nice face that man has." Knowing nothing about golf, she had seen and felt the same thing.
His triumphs since have been relatively rare, but I always rejoice when he is on sufficient form to make the cut so I may see more of him. He more than anyone probably made me interested in golf.
Posted: 04/04/2005 21:33
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