Faldo/Norman by Andy Farrell

Author:Andy Farrell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909653719
Publisher: Elliott & Thompson

Overall in the 77 Masters up to 2013, 49 of those leading with nine holes to play went on to win, while 37 lost (some inevitably as there can be co-leaders out on the course but not co-winners). Lee Westwood got himself into the lead on the 10th tee in 1999 and then out of it pretty quickly, finishing in a tie for sixth. ‘I felt sick,’ he recalled. ‘I feel nervous like anyone else, but that’s as nervous as I’ve ever felt. I didn’t handle that situation as well as I’d have liked to. That’s the first time I had ever experienced a lead in a major championship, so it’s bound to come as a bit of a shock.’

Norman twice failed to hold on to the lead with nine holes to play at Augusta, as did the last three 63-hole leaders, at time of writing. In 2013 Angel Cabrera went on to lose in a playoff to Adam Scott; the year before Louis Oosthuizen, out in front thanks to his albatross at the 2nd hole, lost in a playoff to Bubba Watson; and in 2011 Rory McIlroy just lost it totally. The young Northern Irishman had led for three days and despite an outward 37 still had his nose in front until his tee shot at the 10th. His drive finished between the Peek Cabin and the Berckmans Cabin – the latter named after the Belgian baron who founded the Fruitland Nurseries on the site in the 1850s – after hooking his drive into one of the 150-year-old pines and getting a horrid bounce backwards and farther left.

Never before had the CBS cameras had to focus their lenses on that area of the course and when they finally picked him out, the long-distance and unsteady pictures only added to the sense that we were intruding on a very private grief. McIlroy hacked his way to a triple-bogey seven, before three-putting the 11th for a bogey, four-putting the 12th for a double bogey and then pulling his drive at the 13th into the tributary of Rae’s Creek that runs up the left-hand side of the fairway. He slumped over his driver, close to tears. It was a desolate image that might have become a defining one. But it turned out this was the moment the boy became a man. After an 80 he braved the media and said: ‘I just unravelled. It was a character-building day, put it that way.’ And two months later he won the US Open by eight strokes.

The only cabin a golfer in the Masters wants to end up in is the Butler Cabin, where the green jacket ceremony is performed for television. But since McIlroy’s miscue from the 10th tee, the cabins to the left of that fairway have become one of the visitor attractions for patrons, especially those on practice days for whom it might be their only time on the grounds. Another new spot that draws a crowd is way down the hill from the same tee, deep in the trees on the right.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.