Masters Week

I arrived in Augusta on Friday night and had a couple of lazy days before going to the course on Sunday afternoon to register and pick up my courtesy car for the week. I got a brand new white Cadillac 4x4 to use, what a treat, I could really get used to that.

I went to the course on Monday morning all ready to go, the whole place looked so different to how it looked only a couple of weeks ago. The peace and quiet had been replaced by thousands of eager fans. While sorting out my locker Jerry Kelly stopped to say hi, I seem to play with him every time I go to America, so we decided to have a game later that morning. I did lots of media interviews during the day, talking to the golf channel, BBC and many other TV stations and press groups. Jerry and I enjoyed our game we seemed to laugh all the way around, my practice went well as I refreshed my memory of what I had learned during my previous visit.

When I was out there a few weeks ago I met up with a photographer from Sports Illustrated, he was putting together an article with photographs of all eighteen rookies for the Master's preview edition of the magazine. To my surprise they used one of my pictures for the front cover, for anyone who hasn't heard of the magazine, Sports Illustrated is the biggest sports magazine in America if not the world. To be on the cover is a great honour and is usually reserved for the worlds best sportsmen and women.

Tuesday morning was spent practising on the range for a couple of hours, and then I paid a visit to the Titleist tour van where I had my lofts and lies checked on my clubs, with as much golf as we play its amazing how much your clubs can change, especially forged heads. There was nothing out of the ordinary and with that I went out and played the front nine. Nothing of any interest really happened, and I headed home for the day. The draw was announced on Tuesday afternoon and I was pleased I got a good one, early out on the first day with Chris DiMarco and Steve Stricker.

On Wednesday morning I played the back 9 with Carl Peterson, Robert Karlsson and Jeev Milka Singh... they are all great guys and we had a good time. After a light lunch I made my way over to the Par 3 course at around 2:30pm, it is one of the many traditions of the Masters and I had the pleasure to play with Paul Casey and Retief Goosen. I shot +1, which wasn't too bad as the holes range from 65 to 145 yards with slopped greens, but next to -5 from Mark O'Meara it looked average! No one has ever won the Par 3 tournament and gone on to win the green jacket in the same year... I'm sure you've heard that its unlucky to win it and one of the players seemed to agree as they allegedly shot -7 but didn't turn in their score card! Every hole has a nearest the pin and on the 5th I hit a great shot to the slightly elevated green, by the reaction of the crowd I figured it was very close, and when I got up there it was no more than six inches from the hole. My pleasure was short lived when I looked up at the board to find David Toms had holed his tee shot... typical! I spent another hour or so on the putting green before I left that night as the greens had dried out throughout the day and were rolling much faster, I figured this is how things would be for the rest of the week.

After having breakfast in the locker room on Thursday morning I headed to the range to warm up... something everyone needed to do as the temperature had dropped around 30 degrees overnight. After loosening up I headed to the chipping green where Bones, Phil Mickelson's caddie stopped me to say hello and wish me well for the week, a nice touch as I hadn't seen him since the final round of the US Open. I began my round with five steady pars and after a 7 iron to five foot on the par 3 sixth I broke the run with a birdie. This tied me for the early lead and also meant that I have now lead every Major at some point, one of these days I'm hoping it will be after 72 holes! With all the tall trees around the course the wind can switch direction while the ball is in mid flight and make you look silly, this happened at the seventh where I came up twenty yards short with a 7 iron from the fairway, there is nothing you can do about it, and after missing a six footer for par I was back to level. I followed this with a missed chance for birdie on eight and a 3-putt bogey at nine to turn in 37 (+1). I got through Amen corner still at +1 but bogies at fourteen and fifteen took me to +3... three steady pars to finish added up to 75, not bad but not what I was looking for after such a positive start. When I finished my round I was in 58th place, but by the end of the day I was tied 28th, a true sign of how tough the course was playing and made my score more pleasing in such a high quality field.

On Friday I went out just after midday for my second round and started with two par's, narrowly missing chances for birdie on both greens. My second shot at the short par 4 third came up a foot short from being very good and spun back off the green leaving me dead! Four shots later, a double bogey left my head spinning especially as I hadn't hit a bad shot. We had a 10-minute wait at the next tee which gave me time to compose myself and get refocused. I made solid pars at the next three holes and then missed great birdie chances from inside ten feet on the following three. Then came Amen corner... a pulled tee shot at eleven meant the safe play was to lay up short right of the green to avoid bringing the water into play, this I did but after a strange bounce on my pitch, I watched my ball roll into the pond anyway, it seemed to happen in slow motion. I went to the drop zone and ended up making a triple bogey to go to +8 for the tournament. The front left flag at twelve is usually the easy position but not with the greens so firm, the best I could do was twenty-five foot down the hill from behind the hole back towards the water, after seeing how quick the eleventh green was I chickened out and left it six foot short, another bogey took me to +9. From checking the leaderboards I knew the cut would be around seven or eight over par and felt I had to be slightly more aggressive than I had been so far if I was going to play over the weekend. I took a tight line off the thirteenth tee in an attempt to reach the green in two but my ball clipped the branches on the left, I could do nothing more than a chip out, a bogey six followed by a double bogey six at fourteen meant there was little chance of making the cut and with two pars on fifteen and sixteen I knew I would be having the weekend off. In the end my second round added up to 83... definitely not where I wanted to be. My playing partners finished on +9 and +12, all three of us failing to make the +8 cut.

Emptying your locker on a Friday isn't a nice feeling and after packing my flight bag and saying goodbye to all the guys in the locker room I headed back to the house I had rented for the week. I had a quiet day on Saturday, going to the mall and watching some of the golf. I packed up Sunday morning and made my way to Atlanta to catch my flight home minus a green jacket!

I prepared well for the tournament, and felt as though I did everything I could do to give myself the best chance of playing well but what do they say about best-laid plans! It just didn't happen for me, but I have gained some valuable experience. My game is in good shape and I am confident that the results will start to show that soon. There is still plenty of golf to play this year, it is only April.

My next tournament will be the Spanish Open in Madrid from the 26th to 29th of April. I won this event back in 2003 and although this year being played on a different course I have many good memories, it is always nice to return to an event as a past winner.