Majoring in moments to remember
What’s the bigger surprise, Jack Nicklaus becoming Masters champion for the sixth time at age 46 or Sergio Garcia, at 37, ever doing so?
Much less that Garcia would do it with his putter, which has betrayed him so often whenever he had a chance at a claret jug, Wanamaker Trophy or green jacket that goes to the winner of this major tournament or that.
Garcia, after all, had become a poster child for what golfers call the yips, the mortal fear of drawing back the flattest stick in one’s bag and following through. Garcia’s trouble on the greens was an underlying reason he entered his 19th Masters last week with an 0-for-73 record in the majors.
All that changed on a glorious Sunday afternoon at Augusta National Golf Club, on whose back nine two European stars took turns giving away the year’s first major title before one finally made a putt.
The host network had to delay the start of “60 Minutes” (except on the West Coast), but no matter. Sergio Garcia winning a major golf tournament qualified as breaking news and kept viewers glued to CBS.
It seemed cruel that after tying at 9-under 279 through 72 holes, Garcia and Justin Rose were sent back to No. 18 to begin the playoff. Moments earlier, tied for the lead, each had missed a birdie opportunity at the cathedral of golf. Rose, with a longer putt, played for a right-to-left break that wasn’t there. Garcia looked shaky leaving a six-footer right of the cup.
Some of the pressure was lifted from Garcia when Rose’s second drive off 18 sailed wide and he could only punch out to the fairway. Rose could not get up and down for par while Garcia, on safely in two, had only to two-putt from 12 feet for the right never to be called again the best golfer never to win a major.
The late Seve Ballesteros, his idol, would have been proud that fellow Spaniard Garcia, for whom expectations have been enormous since he chased home Tiger Woods in a PGA Championship long ago, settled it with a birdie rather than a tap-in par.
“I get to call myself Masters champion, that is amazing,” said Garcia.
That Sergio won his first major on what would have been Seve’s 60th birthday seemed only fitting. Garcia was the low amateur in 1999 when fellow countryman Jose Maria Olazabal claimed his second Masters title.
“To do it on his 60th birthday, to join him and Jose Maria, my two idols in golf, as Masters champions, it’s amazing,” Garcia said. “I thought about him (Ballesteros) in my mind a few times, no doubt about it. I’m sure he helped a little bit with some of the shots and some of the spots.”
Ballesteros, for whom the term dashing Spaniard could have been coined, won the Masters in 1980 and 1983. He was contending again when Jack Nicklaus almost aced No. 16 in 1986. Seve promptly splashed his approach to the adjacent 15th, and on a Masters Sunday for the ages (and the aged), a 46-year-old Nicklaus shot a 7-under 65 and rose from the golfing dead for his sixth green jacket.
That one is remembered for Jack flirting with the flag at 16, birdieing 17 with a downhill 18-footer that evoked the “Maybe… Yes sir!” call from CBS analyst Verne Lundquist and, finally, embracing caddy and son Jack Jr. behind the 18th green. Nicklaus shot 30 on the back nine but said later that bogeying the par-three 12th after three straight birdies served as a wake-up call that he had holes remaining.
Garcia’s make-or-break moment Sunday came at the 13th, a birdie or eagle hole on most days but that on this one Sergio made par five with a penalty stroke. He then birdied the 14th and, after “probably the best eight-iron I’ve ever hit,” eagled the 15th to tie Rose, who birdied the same hole.
Two down with seven to play, Garcia dropped one stroke back after bogeying the 16th but got it back at the 17th, the Lundquist hole, with a two-putt par and Rose bogey.
What Garcia called “a great battle” and that Rose said “must have been fun to watch” had 18th-hole drama ahead.
Rose, a past U.S. Open winner, finished four strokes back in second when Jordan Spieth won the
2015 Masters at 18 under. He left Augusta this time in good spirits, saying “I think this is a tournament I’m going to win” and that at 36, “I’ve still got a bunch of good years in front of me.”
A Masters that began with tributes to Arnold Palmer ended with cheers for Sergio Garcia, both deserved.