Wins at the majors leave lasting impression on rivals

Five pros talk about the best moments as fans

Major champions today create memories for tomorrow. Some of them, anyway. Still to be determined is whether the grit Patrick Reed showed at Augusta National — holding off Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler in that order — resonates with a junior who is just getting into golf or motivates one of Reed’s peers.

“It’s such a nostalgic game,” McIlroy said last summer. “People remember when they watched Jack (Nicklaus) win a U.S. Open or Tom Watson chip in at Pebble Beach. Whatever generation it is, that’s what they’re going to remember and that’s their fondest memory.”

McIlroy was among five major champions who were asked about their fondest memory of a major (excluding those they won). friends, who went nearly 20 years before winning his first major. “I cried,” McIlroy said. “I cried! I was so happy for him.”

Jordan Spieth was 11, already honing his putter on a closely mowed section of his front yard, when Tiger Woods won the Masters in 2005 for the fourth time.

Spieth considers that his favourite major championship victory that wasn’t his own.

“It goes back to when Tiger holed that chip on 16 and ended up going to a playoff with Chris DiMarco,” Spieth said. “That Masters win because of that shot ... when you’re a kid, you want to go out right away and try some kind of similar shot that you saw someone hit.”

Nothing was remotely similar until he played Augusta National for the first time in the fall of 2013.

“The first thing I was interested in was going behind 16, putting the tee down wherever that pin was and hitting that shot,” he said.

Ten years after watching Woods win a fourth green jacket, Spieth won his first.

And perhaps it was only fitting that in the final round, Spieth went long on the 16th and wound up in a similar spot from where Woods chipped in.

“I didn’t hit the shot anywhere as good as him,” said Spieth, who had to make an 8-footer for par to keep a four-shot lead.

“He was against the collar of the rough, too. That was the coolest shot I ever witnessed and probably ever will witness.” the top 100 in the world and not even eligible for all the majors. And then, finally, he won the claret jug.

Love recalls waiting to see Justin Leonard win at Royal Troon in 1997. This was different. “I don’t think when I watched Justin get the trophy I had tears in my eyes,” Love said.

Scott used to get up early Monday morning to watch the Masters. His favourite major, however, was the British Open in 1993 at Royal St. George’s, mainly because of the winner.

Greg Norman never won the Masters. He won the claret jug twice, the second time when Scott was a few weeks from turning 13.

“It was such a big moment for me,” he said. “I was 5 when he won his other Open. So this was huge. I had more Shark clothing than him at that point. I really remember a lot of the ’90s majors, how they all panned out. But my favourite was Greg, because it was Greg.”

The favourite major memory of Curtis Strange — except for his back-to-back U.S. Open titles — was when he tied for 21st at the Masters. It was 1986. “I was four groups in front of Jack,” he said.

Nicklaus shot 30 on the back nine and won his sixth green jacket at age 46. He remains the greatest — and oldest — Masters champion.

“From a player’s standpoint, it was one of the most exciting afternoons you’d ever spend,” Strange said.

Hearing the roars behind him along the back nine was only part of it.

After closing with a 72, Strange did something he has never done at a major championship he didn’t win.

He stayed to watch the finish.

“Ordinarily, you finish on Sunday and you’re in and out of the locker-room in five minutes because you want to get the hell out of Dodge,” Strange said. “That lockerroom was full of every player who played that day. Nobody left. That’s what it meant to everybody.”