Class final act from Sandy Lyle as he greets Larry Mize on 18th green in duo's final Masters

His final act was sheer class. After signing off his own competitive career, Sandy Lyle stood at the back of the 18th green on a cold and wet Georgia morning to watch Larry Mize do likewise.

Sandy Lyle and Larry Mize acknowledge patrons on the 18th green after the former winners both brought the curtain down on their careers in the 87th Masters. Picture: Christian Petersen/Getty Images.

It was Mize, winner the year before, who’d slipped a Green Jacket over Lyle’s shoulders when he became the first British and Irish player to win The Masters in 1988 and they’ve been friends ever since.

Lyle was about to chat with a small group of reporters after he’d signed off in his 42nd and last appearance at Augusta National when his wife, Jolande, appeared to let him know that local man Mize was coming up the last.

And, after the American had putted out, Lyle walked down on to the green and handed him a tissue before both players received a nice send off from a small but vocal group of patrons.

“I just think it was the right thing to do,” said Lyle as he eventually got round to sharing his thoughts on what turned out to be a somewhat anticlimactic finish for him after being on the 18th green on Friday afternoon when play was suspended due to inclement weather and then called off for the day. “The wives suggested it and I thought about it and said,’ yeah, I'm going to go back out there and welcome him to a new era, I suppose, for the both of us.”.

Along with playing partners Talor Gooch and Jason Kokrak, Lyle had looked utterly bemused on Friday as a rules official told them that they couldn’t putt out due to the action having been halted as a band of bad weather swept in.

After letting Lyle tee off first at the 18th, Kokrak and Gooch then stood aside up at the green to allow the two-time major winner to grasp the moment only to see that diluted somewhat, which didn’t please Kokrak.

“I said, ‘It’s chicken s**t,” the LIV Golf player told GOLF.com of what he’d said to a Masters official outside the scoring building after he’d already shown his frustration in an animated chat with the rules official amid a few chants of “let him putt” before the group left the green. It was also reported that Kokrak had been overheard saying it “would have been a really cool moment”.

Unfortunately, it meant that only a small group of family and friends were there to witness Lyle actually bringing down the curtain on his glittering career as play resumed at 8am on Saturday morning, having been left to think about a 12-foot par putt overnight.

Using a replica of the Ping Pal putter from his win 35 years ago, he described his eventual attempt at it following a night of a “lot of tequila and a bit of whisky tasting at 1 o’clock this morning” as “lousy”, meaning he signed for an 83, which, following his opening 81, left him last on this occasion on 20-over.

“Cold right now,” said the 65-year-old laughing, in reply to being asked how he felt now it was over, having turned professional in 1977. “Can't believe how it can change so quickly (of the temperature having plummeted from Friday).

“It's amazing,” he declared of his career. “It's part of many, many years of playing competitive golf since I was about 15 or 16 years old and it's come to an end. I'm sure Gary Player and [Jack] Nicklaus and a few others have all gone through the same system, and Mr [Tom] Watson and that lot.

“I knew my time was coming up pretty soon the last few years. And you can tell by the scores that the course is killing me out there. Maybe in time they will have another little tournament going on within The Masters for the over 60s. You never know. Play off the front tees. It would be entertaining.”