From The AJC (Former columnist Furman Bisher)
AUGUSTA — Augusta National rarely is the stage for the coming forth of a budding golfer, not in recent times, anyway. And it hasn’t always been reserved for the player on his way to the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Fla. Claude Harmon won here, and he was just on his way to work. He’d spent the winter in Florida, but he’d stopped over in Augusta on his way back to Winged Foot. Tommy Aaron won here, because it was in Georgia, it seems. He never won in any other state.
Oh, and do you remember Lenny Mattiace? Of course you don’t. He hasn’t ranked higher than 188th on our PGA Tour since 2003. That was the year he walked into the clubhouse on Sunday afternoon leading the Masters, and then Mike Weir tied him on the 18th hole and won the playoff with a bogey in the playoff. A bogey ! That was it for Lenny. Life just didn’t seem fair.
While we’re into it, look at Fuzzy Zoeller. Breezed in here in 1979, as only Fuzzy could breeze. A rookie playing his first Masters. Down the stretch tied with Tom Watson and Ed Sneed, then won in a playoff on the 11th hole and went whizzing around the green like a human rocket.
Poor Ed Sneed, a mannerly gentleman perfectly tailored for a green jacket. He’d bogeyed into the 18th green, then had a six-foot putt for it all. To win. And he left too much wind between his ball and the cup. Egad, it was sad. He would never come close again.
Everybody around Augusta remembers the year Larry Mize shot down Greg Norman with a country-mile chip on the 11th hole. Hometown kid, one of those who used to work a scoreboard at Augusta National. I remember so well because of the sight of Seve Ballesteros plodding back up the 10th fairway, caddie at his side. He was the third man out of the playoff, a fallen casualty after missing a tying putt on the 10th green.
And Norman was much to be pitied. Three times he was a loser on Sunday afternoon, and the one that’s cemented firmly in the mind is the historic finish of 1986. Ah, remember? The year that Jack Nicklaus won his sixth at 46, the moment that will never die at Augusta.
We have now come several years down the road, and the scoreboard at Augusta National has taken a hardy swing to the international side. Since the year Nicklaus cashed in with his sixth title, 12 Masters green jackets have adorned the wardrobe of international players. (Though it should be made clear that Mike Weir schooled in the United States, and lists his home as Utah. But he is Canadian born and bred.)
So pause here on another Saturday afternoon with American Phil Mickelson standing guard over a couple of Brits, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, and a gaggle of other foreign-bred guests. Oh, what a sparkling finish this will be. In case it should be one of the Englishmen, most of us conclude that, sartorially, the preference would be Westwood. The green jacket might never recover from the damaging effects of Poulter’s bodacious wardrobe.
For that matter, that appears to be a matter of no consequence as the shadows fall over the Georgia pines. The bottom dropped out of Poulter’s game. And Mickelson darn near eagled the 13th, 14th and 15th in a row. That means five strokes in three holes, which might be some kind of record.
Breathe easy, America. Hopefully, good ol’ Phil is poised to carry the Red, White and Blue across the finish line for us. At least, he carries the hope of America on his back.
You gotta love him.
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