Faldo/Norman (21 page)

Between 1980 and 1999, Europeans won 11 out of the 20 Masters contested (in contrast to no triumphs at the US Open and the US PGA during the same span). Seve Ballesteros led the way in 1980 and 1983, Bernhard Langer followed in 1985 and 1993, while José María Olazábal was another double winner in 1994 and 1999. For four years in a row the winner of the Masters was British: Lyle in 1988, Faldo in 1989 and 1990 and Ian Woosnam in 1991. It was an unprecedented run of success, yet no European has won at Augusta in the new millennium. And although seven Open Championships were claimed in 14 years from 1979 to 1992, it is really at Augusta that the dominance of this group of players had to be acknowledged by the world.

Since the days of Harry Vardon and the Great Triumvirate had ended, all the leading players had been American, with the notable exceptions of the likes of Henry Cotton, Bobby Locke, Peter Thomson and Gary Player. But suddenly, a new generation of European stars all arrived at once, and brought along with them the likes of Norman and Nick Price for good measure. Ballesteros was born in April 1957, Faldo in July 1957, Langer in August 1957, Lyle in February 1958 and Woosnam in March 1958. They were Europe’s ‘Big Five’. Olazábal came along
later, born in 1966, but from the moment he made his debut in the 1987 Ryder Cup as Seve’s protégé, he was put on a par with the others.

Ryder Cup victories from 1985 onwards showed that the balance of power was shifting (Europeans joined the competition in 1979 to help Great Britain and Ireland, who had not beaten the Americans since 1957). But it was quite another thing to storm the great citadel of American golf, Augusta National, founded by the immortal Bobby Jones, quite so breathtakingly. How did it happen?

One theory Faldo subscribed to was that although Augusta might have become spiritually the home of American golf, the test on offer was quite different from that at other major venues in the States, or on the week-to-week PGA Tour. ‘It’s so different from everywhere else anyone plays, we all have to adapt,’ he said. Europeans, it was felt, were at an advantage because instead of getting used to the same conditions every week, they had to adapt wherever they travelled, be it from the British seaside across to continental Europe or travelling around the world to Africa, Australia, perhaps Japan or South America as well as in the States. While the modern European Tour travels all over the globe virtually every week of the year, back then it stayed in Europe and was only open for business between April and October. To get ahead, Europe’s best had to travel the world.

Faldo had left the confines of Welwyn Garden City when he grasped the need to challenge himself to an even greater degree. In his mind, he turned a relatively featureless north London parkland course into a major-championship worthy test by imagining water hazards and out of bounds features. Still, his first trips to the States were an eye-opener. ‘When I first came to America,’ he said, ‘water scared me because you didn’t see it as much in Europe. For a while, you really had to get over that. In Europe, you could
miss a green by 30 to 40 yards and if you were a good chipper you could still get up and down. But in the States, plonk, you are in the water, you are dropping out and taking a double bogey when you are just two yards off the side of the green. It came as a real shock.’

Augusta National has its share of treacherous water hazards but in comparison to courses such as Oakmont and Winged Foot and other typical venues for the US Open or the US PGA Championship, there was not the thick rough just off the fairways and greens. There still isn’t, although a bordering ‘second cut’ was introduced in 1999 that is as pristine as most courses’ fairways. Someone like Ballesteros was constrained at the other US majors, with his off-line driving severely punished and his exquisite short game neutralised by long grass just off the greens. At Augusta, he was able to give full expression to his skills.

‘The best players win on the fairest courses and Augusta National is, of all the courses used for majors in America, the fairest – by a considerable distance,’ wrote David Davies in
Golf Weekly
just before the 1992 Masters. ‘Augusta National feels no need to defend itself by growing debilitating rough. All the course asks you to do is to drive into the right place in order to have the easiest second shot. A bad drive is its own penalty, for it will make that second shot exceedingly difficult. Should you miss the green, the difficulty in making par is imposed by the speed, and the gradient, of the greens. Thus Augusta removes the element of chance attendant in golf, while the other two US majors enhance that element, and emphasize it.

‘The best players will flourish where their skills are allowed to be expressed, and it is arguable that all the European winners of the Masters, with the possible exception of Ballesteros in 1980, were, at the time, one of the top-three players in the world. Given
a course on which they could express their talents, it is perhaps not so surprising that they have won so frequently.’

It is a tribute to the genius of the design by Jones and MacKenzie that Augusta has always churned out quality champions. It is also the secret to why the tournament has become so popular with players and fans alike. For the first few decades of the Masters, the best players were all American, then they were suddenly European. Michael McDonnell, in
Golf World
’s Masters preview for 1992, also pointed out: ‘Perhaps the most important factor in this run of victories has been the domino effect of success itself. More exactly, it is the
if-he-can-so-can-I
attitude which not only prompts each rival into action but also reduces the awe in which previously he held the grand title that his mate has now won.’

Ballesteros was the one who showed the rest it was possible. Price told
Golf Digest
: ‘A lot of us who would win majors – me, Greg, Faldo, Sandy, Langer – were the same age, but Seve was our benchmark. He won four majors before any of us won any and he had immense charisma.’

‘Seve was golf’s Cirque du Soleil,’ Faldo said upon the Spaniard’s retirement in 2007, singling out the final round of the 1988 Open, when Ballesteros beat both Faldo and Price, as the greatest he had seen. ‘The passion, artistry, skill, drama, that was Seve. It was the swashbuckling way he played. He hit it and chased after it and hit it again, but no two follow-throughs were ever the same. You just had to stand back and admire it. We had great respect for each other.’

Ballesteros loved nothing more than beating Americans at golf, and he also loved it when the likes of Lyle and Faldo followed suit. A mark of his greatness was not just his own achievements but what he made possible for others. ‘I led them all,’ the Spaniard said, ‘winning the Masters, winning the Open, winning the Ryder
Cup, winning in America. If anybody asked me what my biggest achievement is, I always say that I am very proud that I was the first to do all those things.’

When Player made his great back-nine charge in 1978, Ballesteros was playing alongside the South African. On the 13th hole, Player told him: ‘Seve, these people don’t think I can win. You watch. I’ll show them.’ It was exactly the attitude the Spaniard would adopt and two years later, having already won his first Open at Lytham, Ballesteros went into the final round leading by seven strokes. What would Norman, 16 years on, have given for a start that included three birdies in the first five holes? Seve was ten ahead at the turn but such is the back nine at Augusta that moments later it was a very different situation. He bogeyed the 10th, then found the water at the 12th for a double bogey and was wet again at the 13th which cost a bogey six. Meanwhile Jack Newton had made three birdies and was now only three strokes behind. Soon, Gibby Gilbert was only two adrift but Ballesteros pulled himself together and eventually won by four.

Player, the three-time champion, was the only other overseas player to have won the Masters. Now Seve was the first European winner and, at 23, the youngest ever champion (and would remain so until the 21-year-old Tiger Woods won in 1997). He repeated the feat three years later, again winning by four strokes after starting the final round birdie-eagle-par-birdie.

More Masters titles should have followed for Ballesteros but he missed out due to the four-iron into the pond at the 15th in 1986 and his exit at the first playoff hole in 1987. Instead, it was Langer who was the next European to don the green jacket on Easter Sunday in 1985 – teamed with his red trousers the German said it made him look like a Christmas tree.

Lyle had played alongside Nicklaus on the magical afternoon in 1986 when the Bear won his sixth Masters. Two years later Lyle
led after 54 holes and despite leading the US money list and having won the previous week at the Greater Greensboro Open, he admitted in his autobiography
To the Fairway Born
: ‘With dawn came the same sheer gut-wrenching panic I used to feel as a child while sitting in the dentist’s waiting room contemplating the pain to come and fully aware that it might be even more intense than my worst imaginings.’

He added: ‘The difference between sporting triumph and disaster, always a very, very thin line, is even more slender at Augusta.’ At the 18th hole, Lyle drove into a bunker but he just had enough clearance from the high lip to hit a seven-iron that flew majestically over the flagstick and then trickled back down from the top tier of the green ever closer to the hole. He made the putt to beat Mark Calcavecchia by a stroke, and the Scot became only the fourth player at the time to have won the Masters with a birdie at the last, following Art Wall (1959), Arnold Palmer (1960) and Player (1978). Mark O’Meara and Phil Mickelson have managed it since, in 1998 and 2004.

Lyle helped Faldo into a green jacket in 1989, and Faldo did the same for Woosnam in 1991, after the Welshman had holed a vital par putt at the last to beat Olazábal by a stroke. After Langer won for a second time in 1993, this time coordinating his outfit with a yellow shirt, Olazábal won the first of his two jackets in 1994 by two strokes from Tom Lehman. Ballesteros had left a note for his countryman before the final round: ‘Be patient. You know exactly how to play this course. Allow the others to become nervous. You are the best player in the world.’

When Seve said something like that, you listened up. Coincidentally, at the Champions Dinner before the 1999 Masters, Player had Olazábal up against a wall reminding him of what a great golfer he was. Player is another who must be believed and victory duly followed. Faldo never needed anyone else to give
him such a pep talk. What Seve told Olazábal was what Faldo always told himself.

It took until Faldo’s sixth appearance at Augusta in 1989, ten years after his debut, to get comfortable with the course. Lee Trevino was making his 18th appearance and still did not like the course – the six-time major winner was never better than tenth in the Masters – but he took the lead by one over Faldo on the first day and the pair were tied at the halfway stage. It was the only time when the Englishman topped the leaderboard after one of the first three rounds of the Masters. Faldo actually led by three at the turn on Friday but as the weather got ever colder and wetter, his form shrivelled. Six under for the first 27 holes, he was eight over for the next 27. A third-round of 77 was completed on Sunday morning after returning to the course and playing the last five holes in two over par.

He was now five behind Crenshaw and spent the short break between rounds trying out a new putter on the practice green and working on a tip he had received from fellow tour player Mike Hulbert a week earlier: left hand back, right hand through. It worked. He holed from 25 feet on the 1st green and produced the round of the day with a seven-under 65. He was still three behind with four to play but birdied the par-five 15th, the 16th, holing a slick 15-foot downhiller with enormous break, and the 17th, where he popped one in from 35 feet up the slope. It gave the Englishman the clubhouse lead at five under and then he had to wait as others finished behind him. Ballesteros went in the pond at the 16th and took a double bogey while Scott Hoch, who had been leading by one, bogeyed the 17th and finished level with Faldo. Norman and Crenshaw both had the chance to birdie the
last to win but ended up with bogeys so it was just the twosome of Hoch and Faldo in the playoff.