Leather Outdoor Mules

over in 20 farcical minutes. He was smiling to himself as he walked to the second tee, but it was a look of embarrassment.

Willett said: “It’s a disappointing couple of days. The golf course is set up tough. They didn’t want too many low scores out there.

“It’s been two fabulous years and then you have a little bit of a downturn and it feels like the world is coming to an end.”

Having fought his way back into the tournament on the opening day with a battling 73, the reigning champion now faced a desperate rescue mission.

Successive pars at the next two holes steadied the ship, but Willett ran up another bogey on the par three fourth to slip to six over. Worse was to follow at the short sixth when he failed to convert a 12-footer for birdie and was down in 69th place.

Some Sheffield steel was needed as Willett headed towards the dreaded Amen Corner, where hopes and dreams can sink into Rae’s Creek.

Willett showed his bottle with an impressive birdie on the long par four 10th to make the perfect start to the back nine.

But he gave the shot back straight away after bogeying the harder 11th.

Swish

Willett, dressed all in grey, must have felt like the colour of his outfit as he plodded round, moaning and gesticulating to caddie Jonathan Smart.

What a difference a year makes. Roughly this time 12 months ago the pair were photographed hugging each other in the scoring hut after Willett’s win had been confirmed.

Willett reeled off four straight pars but failed to birdie either of the par fives on the back nine and produced a swish of his putter in frustration on the 16th green.

When he bogeyed the final hole it all added up to a slog of 78 that left him with a halfway total of seven over par.

Willett was not the only British star to suffer Masters misery on another difficult afternoon at Augusta.

Ian Woosnam, champion in 1991, fired a 78 while Ross Fisher had to settle for a frustrating 74.

Englishman Tyrrell Hatton, meanwhile, was less than impressed with a second round 78 to go with the 80 he shot on his debut 24 hours earlier.