Martin Dempster: Sub-plots aplenty as Augusta thrills again

AS THE dust settles on the first salvo of the major season, the biggest problem about this Masters post-mortem is where to start. It certainly didn’t go to script, the pre-event talk of a shoot-out between Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods never being on the cards while Luke Donald, the world No 1, failed to hit the heights once again in a major.

Yet, it spoke volumes for the current state of the sport that, despite those missing ingredients, the event still proved gripping to the bitter end, the eventual outcome also showing us how the face of the Royal & Ancient game has changed over the years as a bloke called Bubba, who plays with a pink driver, found himself slipping into a Green Jacket.

Watson’s win stretched the sequence of successive different major winners to 14 and, with 11 of them being first-time major champions, we’ve certainly come to expect the unexpected in golf these days. As Bubba blubbered off home to Florida to celebrate, others were heading off to lick their wounds, optimism having been replaced with doses of disappointment and reality in equal measures. Report cards included:

Tiger Woods

We believed he was ‘back’ after winning at Bay Hill but, in fact, the four-time Masters winner still has spades of work to put in before he’ll come close to kick-starting his major career again. What must surely be worrying for Tiger fans these days is that he doesn’t seem capable of finding a quick-fix when things start to go wrong, the natural ability that once made the game look so easy now a distant memory. On this evidence, Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major wins is safe as houses and, what’s more, do we really want to see someone who can’t stop himself from kicking clubs around and swearing to be remembered as the game’s greatest player?

Rory McIlroy

While he won’t be nearly as disappointed as he was after blowing a four-shot lead heading into the final round 12 months ago, it still proved another painful learning experience for the Ulsterman in Georgia. Well in contention at the halfway stage, he inexplicably went into reverse in the final two rounds and ended up with his worst finish for a long time, though it still seems likely that McIlroy will get his revenge on Augusta National one day.

Phil Mickelson

We’ve witnessed some incredible Mickelson meltdowns over the years and the events at the fourth hole in the final round are up there with the best of them. Sure, he was a bit unlucky to see his tee shot at the par-3 hit off the grandstand and ricochet into the bushes, but the moment those eyes started to glaze over we should have started to worry. He was lucky not to incur a two-shot penalty for a ridiculous decision to turn a wedge around and try and hack the ball out right-handed, the resultant triple-bogey 6 effectively costing him a fourth Green Jacket, even though he did well to stay in the mix almost to the death.

Luke Donald

Should we now be starting to worry about the Englishman being able to produce the goods on the biggest stages in the game? The answer on this evidence, I’m afraid, would have to be yes, as the game’s top-ranked player was never in contention. It could be the case that Augusta National is too long for someone like Donald and the fact Watson, Charl Schwartzel and Phil Mickelson have been the last three winners there might well back that up, with a US Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco and an Open at Royal Lytham likely to provide Donald with his best chances of proving the doubters wrong.

Lee Westwood

Like his compatriot, doubts must surely be starting to creep into Westwood’s mind about his ability to land one of these events after seeing another chance to make the big breakthrough slip through his fingers, an abject putting display adding to the catalogue of ‘nearly man’ tales building up. Tee to green, Westwood has been the best player by far in majors in recent years but, at this event in particular, he’s always going to come up empty-handed unless he gets his putting sorted out.

Louis Oosthuizen

As was the case when he cruised to victory in the Open at St Andrews two years ago, the South African was a joy to watch in the final round, which he ignited by holing for an albatross-2 at the second. His one error was hitting a poor tee shot himself after Watson had carved his drive into the trees at the second extra hole but, at the same time, it certainly wasn’t a case of Oosthuizen losing the title and, on this evidence, that St Andrews success won’t be his only major triumph.

Sergio Garcia

According to the Spaniard, he’s now given up hope of winning a major, his comments after the second round being a real cause for concern. “After 13 years, today was the day... I’m not good enough and now I know it,” he declared. If a player of Garcia’s class is giving up the ghost at the age of 32, that’s worrying and let’s hope the likes of Jose Maria Olazabal and Miguel Angel Jimenez give him a real shake between now and the US Open.

For one reason or another, it was a Masters to remember yet again, a fitting finale being Bubba’s miraculous shot from deep in the trees, which, a day before the Spaniard would have celebrated his 55th birthday, showed that the new Masters champion plays the game in a way the great Seve Ballesteros did.