1) Jack Nicklaus at the age of 46 surges through the back nine to win an unlikely sixth masters in 1986
“Done. Through. Finished. Washed up.” Tom McCollister of the Atlanta Constitution on Jack Nicklaus, the week before the 1986 Masters
Jack Nicklaus was no ordinary golfer. Blessed with power, skill and, perhaps most important of all, a great golfing brain, he dominated world golf for over 20 years. From finishing second in the US Open as an amateur in 1960 up to 1985 he won 17 Majors (19 if you count the US Amateur), was runner-up 19 times and placed in the top 10 on a further 32 occasions. He was always in contention.
That was, until the mid-1980s. Now into his 40s he seemed to be spending more time designing and building golf courses that actually playing them. Coming to the 1986 Masters, he had not won a Major for six years and no tournament at all for two. He sat an embarrassing 160th on the US money list and, amazingly for Nicklaus, was 157th in putting. No-one, except perhaps Nicklaus himself, gave him a chance.
A modest first round 74 was followed by a 71 in the second and 69 in the third. This positive progression took him to a share of ninth place, only four shots behind the leader, Greg Norman. But on a stacked leaderboard, few but the most sentimental were backing Nicklaus. Still, he set off on the final day with a target of 65 in mind, the score that he calculated he could win the tournament with.
Nicklaus had not putted well all week and the pattern continued on the front nine with two missed putts from around 4 feet. Still, he was holding his score together and after a lucky escape on 8, was level par for the round. The fun started on the 9th. Facing a 10-footer for birdie, he twice stepped away from the putt, disturbed by the cheering that accompanied chip-ins by Tom Kite and Seve Ballesteros on the 8th. When he did get down to it, Nicklaus drained the putt to create a big cheer of his own.
The cheering intensified on the 10th and 11th, both of which Jack birdied with long putts. A bogey on the 12th appeared to have stalled the charge, but it served only to make Jack play more aggressively. He reached the green of the par-five 13th in two and two-putted for birdie. After a par on 14 he took on the par-five 15th and again reached the green in two. This time he sank his tricky 12-footer for eagle and closed to within two of the lead. When he hit his five-iron tee-shot at 16 to three feet the watching crowd went wild, even more so when he tapped in the putt and moved to eight under. His momentum now irresistible, he birdied the 17th from 10 feet – his seventh birdie in 10 holes – and moved into the lead. A par on the last and he had achieved his target of 65.
While Nicklaus was burning up the course, his opponents were showing signs of cracking. The mercurial Ballesteros came to the 15th still in the lead but, with the pressure ratcheted up by the wall of noise accompanying Nicklaus on the course, hooked his four-iron approach to the green into the water. He three putted 17 and his chance was gone. Tom Kite had a 12-foot putt on the last to tie with Nicklaus, but missed it. And poor old Greg Norman needed only a par at the last to tie and force a play-off. A poor second shot, which ended up in the crowd, did him no favours and he finished with a bogey in a tie for 2nd with Kite.
Implausibly, Nicklaus had won the Masters for the sixth time, at the age of 46. With his son Jackie on his bag, he had conjured up a most incredible finish and a story that will be retold for many years to come.
2) The coming of the messiah – 21-year old Tiger Woods claims his first Masters …by 12 shots!
“the type of player who comes around once in a millennium” Tom Watson on Tiger Woods
His coming had been expected. Almost since the day of his birth we had been waiting for him. And when he did come, well, he most certainly did not disappoint.
Tiger Woods was a prodigy. On national TV at the age of two, shooting 48 for nine holes at age three, club champion at age eight, US junior champion at 15; the then youngest player to tee it up in a PGA tour event at 16; three consecutive US Amateur championships before the age of 21. So, when he turned pro in ‘96 it was under the glare of huge publicity and expectation. If there had been any doubters, he silenced them firmly by making the cut in his first eight events and actually winning two of them.
When he came to his first Masters as a pro in 1997 he was most definitely considered to be a contender. The course suits a long hitter and a great putter and Tiger fitted the bill on both counts. Perhaps the occasion did get to him a little (to add to the pressure of expectation he was paired with defending Masters champion, Nick Faldo) and he slumped to a four-over par 40 on the front nine. At the turn, however, things took a marked change for the better.
He began the back nine with a great putt on 10 for birdie. On the definitive par-3, Golden Bell, the 12th, he was faced with a tough chip back across the green and the smart money was on a bogey. Instead, he chipped in for birdie. Further birdies on 13 and 17 sandwiched an eagle on 15, meaning he had come back in 30 for a two-under par round of 70.
Thereafter, the tournament was a bit of a procession. He recorded a 6-under 66 on day two to move into a three-shot lead. Paired with Colin Montgomerie on day three he went one better with a 65 to take out a nine shot lead. (Poor old Monty was so shell-shocked that he shot an 81 on day four). Then, lest anyone thought he would take it easy, he finished with a 69 on the final day to bring home a massive 12-shot victory. In the space of four eye-opening days Woods had broken numerous records, many at the expense of Jack Nicklaus, whose mantle as ‘best ever’ Woods would go on to threaten.
- Youngest to win the Masters, aged 21 (previously Nicklaus at 22)
- Lowest score to win the Masters – 18 under par, 270 (previous best shared by Nicklaus and Ray Floyd at 271)
- Widest winning margin – 12 shots (previously Nicklaus by nine in 1965)
- First black golfer to win any Major
Woods, of course, would live up to his early promise, winning four more Masters titles and 15 Majors in all, a total surpassed only by Nicklaus. He became not only the biggest name in golf, but probably the biggest name in all of sport. This will surprise no-one who saw him decimate the field as a 21-year old in 1997.
Some interesting asides:
- Woods finished 18 under par … over the four days he was only two-under on the front nine, but 16-under on the back nine.
- Woods did not actually hit the most birdies in the 1997 Masters … that accolade went to veteran Tom Watson with 22. Watson though finished only four-under par.
- Woods did not three putt once during the tournament.
- It was as recently as 1975 that Lee Elder had become the first black player to play the Masters. Previously, the only way a black man could step inside the ropes was to carry a white man’s bag.
3) Sandy gets sandy … Sandy Lyle’s bunker shot at the last 1988
“I could tell from the feel of the club it was a good shot. I did the right thing for a change.” Sandy Lyle on his bunker shot on the 18th
For a brief period in the mid-to-late 1980s Sandy Lyle was the best golfer from the British Isles and one of the very best in the world. The Scotsman, a tremendously natural, strong and uncomplicated golfer had become in 1985 the first British winner of the Open Championship since Tony Jacklin in 1970. Amidst patriotic scenes at Royal St George’s, he had shown that his game could withstand both tough conditions and intense pressure.
After his Open win, he crossed the Atlantic to test himself on the US Tour. Victories in the US by Brits were rare in this period, but Lyle showed his mettle by winning both the 1986 Greater Greensboro Open and the 1987 Players Championship. When he reclaimed the Greater Greensboro in 1988, a week before the Masters, it cemented his position as one of the pre-tournament favourites.
His odds shortened when the wind blew up at the start of the tournament. An experienced links golfer, Lyle coped with the conditions better than everyone and recorded rounds of 71 and 67 to lead at the halfway point. A level par 72 in round three and he entered the final day with a lead of two shots.
Lyle held his nerve at the start of the final round and came to the turn three ahead of the field. A bogey at the 11th, however, followed by a disastrous tee shot into the water and double bogey at the short 12th meant his lead had vanished. He managed, though, to recover his composure and arrived at the 18th tee level with American Mark Calcavecchia, already in the clubhouse on 6-under.
In recent years, improvements in club and ball technology have rendered the two fairway bunkers on 18 almost irrelevant. But in 1988 they were very much in play. Lyle, believing (quite rightly) that he needed a birdie to win, elected to play his trusty one-iron off the tee to give him optimum distance on his approach to the green. The shot looked good, but agonisingly drifted left and rolled into the first of the two bunkers. Lyle’s initial reaction was one of despair, but when he got to the ball he realised he had a decent chance to get it close. The ball had rolled into the face of the bunker, and Lyle saw its position as a kind of launchpad. He had 142 yards to the green and 150 to the pin. He could make it with a full eight-iron, but felt a seven would give him more margin for error.
So, he took a seven. The rest is history. He hit the ball clean as a whistle and it sailed over the flag dropping about 30 feet past. But that wasn’t that. The ball began to roll back down the sloping green, towards the pin and came to a stop about 10 feet from the hole. Was the putt left to right or right to left? Sandy decided to hit it straight and, to the delight of millions of watching British fans, it dropped. Sandy Lyle had recorded a birdie on the last to win the Masters.
Was it the greatest bunker shot ever played? Probably not, but it was hard to beat in terms of its significance. It gave Britain its first ever winner of the Masters and gave the Masters one of its most dramatic and memorable finales ever.
4) Tiger comes back from ‘the dead’ to record his 5th Masters in 2019
“we’ve waited for years … many doubted we’d ever see it but here it is … the return to glory” Jim Nantz, NBC Sports, Augusta 2019
For at least a decade from the moment that Tiger Woods destroyed the field on his way to winning the 1997 Masters, the American was the dominant force in world golf. Ernie Els, David Duval and Vijay Singh may for brief periods have reached the top of the world rankings, but there was no question as to who was really number one. 14 major victories, the ‘Tiger Slam’ in 2000/1, 71 tournament victories by 2009 and vast commercial revenues all added up to an all-time phenomenon.
Things started to go a little astray towards the end of the decade. His personal life was thrown into turmoil in 2009 when he was exposed as a serial philanderer and underwent a painful – in more ways than one – separation from wife, Elin Nordegren. His public reputation as a squeaky-clean uber-professional, understandably, took a battering. Perhaps of more concern, though, to Woods was that his body was beginning to fail him and impact on his golf.
He had always put his body through the wringer and began in the late 2000s to suffer from extreme knee and tibia pain. Somehow, he limped his way to a play-off win in the 2008 US Open, but he then had to take a 9-month break from the game following arthroscopic surgery. He recovered to have a typical Tiger season in 2009 (six victories) but then suffered from a catalogue of serious injuries – his neck, knee again, achilles and back all let him down as he went two years without a win. Once again, he bounced back, with eight victories in 2012/13, but his injury problems then worsened. Serious back issues meant he had to down tools completely in 2015, and series of back surgeries seemed to have ended his playing career for good. A drug-driving conviction in 2017 and the release of embarrassing police mugshots added to the impression that this was a man whose private and sporting lives were both imploding.
Woods, though, was not finished. After all the surgeries he got himself back into some sort of shape and entered a select number of tournaments. Even at 80/90% he was still competitive, and in September 2018 he captured one of the biggest prizes in the sport, the Tour Championship. Despite this, few gave him a chance at the 2019 Masters.
Opening rounds of 70 and 68 put him well into the mix, only one shot off the lead at the half way stage. A third round 67 kept him very much in contention, tied second behind Francesco Molinari. It was perhaps to his advantage that poor weather meant the final day groups were in threes rather than twos. It put him alongside Molinari and Tony Finau, his two closest rivals, and neither were serial closers like Tiger. He used all his experience to plot his way round the course, and wait for the others to falter. They obliged and Tiger closed it out on the 18th for a one-shot win. The crowd, now warmer to Woods than at any time in his career, roared him home.
The 11 years since his previous Major had included a lifetime of physical and personal pain. The greatest winner in golf, though, had come through it and found a way, once again, to win.
5) Larry Mize sinks an impossible chip to win the 1987 Masters
“how’s that look? …. Oh!” – NBC commentary, 1987
Lawrence Hogan Mize was a very decent professional golfer, turning professional in 1980 and retaining his card on the PGA Tour for 20 consecutive seasons from 1982. When the Majors came around, you might fancy him to make the cut, but he would be at best an each-way bet for the win. There was, however, one Major where he had something of a head start and that was the Masters.
Mize’s advantage was that he was born and brought up in Augusta. As a schoolboy he had regularly attended the Masters and as a teenager he had operated one of the many on-course scoreboards. Clearly something of a home boy, when the time had come for him to go to college, he had chosen Georgia Tech in nearby Atlanta. If anyone was unlikely to be intimated or shocked by Augusta National it was him.
By 1987 he had been a pro for six years and had one tournament victory to his name. He’d qualified three times for the Masters and made the cut each time so clearly knew his way around. In a year where the scoring was unspectacular, he played steady golf over the first three days to keep himself in contention. At two-under he started the Sunday only two off the lead held by Ben Crenshaw and Roger Maltbie. But in a field containing several former winners including Ballesteros, Langer, Nicklaus, Tom Watson and world number one Greg Norman, Mize was the clear outsider.
His round was a little up -and-down (six birdies and five bogies for a 71) but with none of his competitors making a substantive move he found himself in a three-way play-off for the title. He might have felt outmatched against Ballesteros and Norman but did not show it. At the first play-off hole, the 10th, Ballesteros failed to make par so dropped out and Mize and Norman moved to the 11th. This is a tough par-4 and Mize found himself 45m wide of the green in two with Norman safely on the fringe of the green. It would take a stunning chip for Mize to get up and down, and for all the world it looked as though Norman would lift his Majors curse (he had led all four in 1986 into the final day and failed to convert any).
Mize perhaps thought he could do it – get up and down that is – but can never have imagined that he would hole the chip. But the ball pitched into the bank, bounced onto the green then rolled and rolled until it miraculously dropped. A shell-shocked Norman could only watch as Mize threw his wedge in the air and danced a jog of joy. Not surprisingly, Norman failed to make his birdie attempt. His bad luck story was Mize’s good luck story. The local man had done it and would dine out on it – literally at the Champions’ Dinner – for ever more.