Bill Elliott
Our editor-at-large analyses Danny Willett’s masterful display at Augusta, as well as reflecting on Jordan Spieth’s implosion and Rory McIlroy’s putting woes
On Danny Willett’s masterful display
Anyway, as I was saying... it was good to see Danny Willett take the jacket thing away with him to Yorkshire as expected. Expected? Who am I trying to kid. Okay, his Twittering older brother had a wad on him at 55/1, as did a small number of others but, come on, even on Sunday as I was spreading my cash around various participants in the Augusta field, Danny Boy didn’t figure on my radar. Believe me, I know about these things and so it was easy to figure out that he was too tense and fidgety a character to prosper on those greens on a Masters Sunday afternoon when nerve-endings twitch even more than Bill Oddie on a bird-spotting spring break.
Well, once again I reassured myself and my friendly bookmaker that when it comes to winning golf tournaments I know little or nothing most of the time. I’m not bothered much about this because the players don’t know who is going to win either. Not even the bloke who does actually make off with the loot.
And that was the biggest, most impressive bit of Willett’s success. When Jordan Spieth stumbled over holes 10 and 11 before scrambling his brains in full, cruel, public view at 12 it meant that several players had a chance of winning. Principal among those were Willett and his playing partner Lee Westwood.
After Willett had carefully constructed his par five on 15 and Westwood knifed his long-range chip into the hole, both men paused to look at the big scoreboard out there and saw to their surprise that the most intuitive, strategic golfer currently playing the old game had inexplicably forgotten how to tiptoe across the most beguiling and treacherous back nine on the planet.
Lee, probably overexcited at his unexpected good fortune, played the 16th too cautiously and dropped a stroke. Danny, however, played it beautifully to birdie. Cometh the hour and all that. The manner in which he then yomped thoughtfully over the always vexatious finishing two holes was as good an example of a man brilliantly cashing in on his luck as I have seen.
No matter what he now does, this was his golden moment. I have read, with numbing irritation, several writers describe this Masters as the one Spieth threw away. Nonsense. The American made some shocking errors but The Masters still needed to be won and England’s latest sporting hero took the day with unforgettable elan. If not now, when? If not you Danny, who?
With the comforting benefit of hindsight we may look back and conclude that Spieth was on the edge all week as he fought a big block off the tee. We may presume that his missed 8ft putt for an improbable par on 11 (after a quite sensational approach) hammered into his confidence with all the jarring impact of a sharp blow to the brain.
He’ll recover. Of course he will. The bigger question is where Willett goes now? And the even larger query hangs disconcertingly over Rory McIlroy.
I hate to say I told you so but I am afraid that I did indeed tell you so. Rory’s putting is currently nowhere near good enough to win a Masters. Can it be? Yes, it can. But will it? Aye, there’s the rub. The Wee Man said that his big mistake this time was to once again place too much pressure on himself, and that he played too defensively. “I’m at my best when I attack courses,” he said, a thought that has been blatantly obvious to the majority of us for some years now. Still, if he’s catching up then that is good. What would be better would be if he found a way of playing holes 10, 11 and 12 that meant he was not simultaneously shooting himself in both feet while stabbing himself in the back.
To date, he is roughly as many shots over par for these three holes as he is under par for the other 15. This is a classic example of how this beautifully perverse game can drill deep into a man’s head and encourage minefields where only Elysian fields should lie.
For him, for Spieth and for Willett the US Open in Pennsylvania next month offers much for the rest of us to anticipate. How each plays and how they react to their differing experiences at Augusta will determine much of how the golfing landscape looks over the next year or two.
What we can say without any debate is that the United States Masters still resonates vibrantly as the game’s most entertaining and unpredictable Major. What we may add is that the traditional Green Jacket presentation in the Butler Cabin now carries all the authority and relevance of a Peter Kay sketch. Except that, if anything, it’s funnier than even Bolton’s great philosopher/wit usually manages. If only the members took themselves more seriously...
“This beautifully perverse game can drill deep into a man’s head and encourage minefields where only Elysian fields should lie”
Bill Elliott is Golf Monthly’s editor-at-large and Golf Ambassador for Prostate Cancer UK