Masters anecdotes

It is a difficult time of year for British greenkeepers when their members get the ‘Augusta-syndrone bug’ of believing their course should be like Augusta, that closes down for four months every year and has millions of dollars thrown at it.

But it was another Masters of amazing television this time by the BBC and Sky.

I thought Bill Elliott in Golf Monthly caught it right when describing Bubba Watson ” He says he has never had a golf lesson in his life and maybe in that moment in the woods down the 10th fairway we saw the truth of this remark. No coach would ever have advised such an audacious move. Like Seve before him, Bubba just plays by feel: a free spirit in search of fun and, now and then, victory.

He is in many ways a man-child. Man enough to gain a degree in consumer Economics from the University of Georgia, child enough to spend a hundred thousand on General Lee, that iconic good, old-boys’ car from the Dukes of Hazard. I hope he wears his Green Jacket next time he drives it ”

It is hard enough getting any interesting, non-coached, sense out of interviewed golfers when the interviewer knows their subjects but it was embarrassing for us cricketers having Yorkshire and England cricketer Michael Vaughan roped in on the BBC. He was clearly out of his depth!

The Sunningdale Foursomes was inaugurated in the same year as the Masters, 1934. It takes place a couple of weeks earlier in the year and is a wonderful tournament to open the British golfing season with mixed sexes and amateurs and professionals all desperately attempting to get their names on the Sunningdale honours board.

I wonder what Sunningdale thinks about one of the players walking down their 17th fairway, photographed talking into his mobile by Kevin Murray for Golf Monthly!?