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AUGUSTA,
Georgia—As
Trevor Immelman walked up the 18th fairway early Sunday
evening at Augusta National Golf Club, he carried no
other burden than the one plainly in front of him, the
one you could see. Just steer one last putt into the
hole and win the Masters.
Sometimes, shouldering the weight of expectations is a
heavy load and there are many for whom it is impossible.
For Immelman, the lifting simply took a little longer.
A child
prodigy, tapped on the shoulder as a teen and told he
was surely destined for something special, his swing
compared with no less than Ben Hogan by legendary South
African countryman Gary Player—that was the lad from
Cape Town.
On a
blustery day when the greens dried out and the scores
soared, Immelman kept his feet on the ground, shot a
three-over 75, held on despite a double bogey at the
16th and won the Masters by three shots over Tiger
Woods.
“Here I
am, the Masters champion,” Immelman said. “It’s the
craziest thing I ever heard of.”
Immelman’s rounds of 68, 68, 69, 75 added up to an
eight-under total of 280. His closing round equals the
highest score by a winner since Arnold Palmer in 1962,
if it matters.
What
should matter, more than the $1.35 million Immelman
earned for the victory, is that he earned his own green
jacket, eased into it by last year’s champion Zach
Johnson.
And so
the first South African since Player to win the Masters
is not Ernie Els or Retief Goosen or even Rory Sabbatini,
it is instead Immelman, a 28-year-old, smooth-swinging,
low-key, unflappable, shot-making, cool-headed major
champion...and no longer a work in progress.
Player
left an encouraging voice mail on Immelman’s cell phone
Saturday night and told Immelman he believed he would
win. It was the right call.
“It gave
me goose bumps,” Immelman said. “He told me I needed to
believe in myself. He just told me to go out there and
be strong through adversity. He told me adversity would
come today, and I would have to deal with it.”
And so
he did. Clinging to a two-shot lead at the turn,
Immelman saved par at the 11th after he blocked his
approach to the right, but made his putt from the
fringe.
“I was
happy to see that one go in.”
Disaster
lurked on every corner
Leading
comfortably by five shots at the par-three 16th,
Immelman backed off his shot because of the swirling
wind. He pulled his shot into the water and made a
double bogey. But Immelman’s lead was still three shots
over Woods, who had already finished.
Immelman
simply knew he had to remain steady.
“With
the conditions, there was disaster around every corner.”
The
first player to lead or share the lead after each round
since Seve Ballesteros in 1980, the 29th-ranked Immelman
is also the first player in his 20s not named Woods to
win the Masters since Jose Maria Olazabal in 1994.
For
Woods, his final round of 72 added up to his second
consecutive runner-up finish at Augusta National, but he
was never closer than the three-shot final margin.
His
well-publicized goal of winning all four majors this
year is over, and Woods joked about it.
“I have
learned my lesson now with the press,” Woods said. “I’m
not going to say anything.”
Stewart
Cink tied for third after his closing 72, the same
position as Brandt Snedeker, who shot a 77 after
beginning the day only two shots out of the lead. Steve
Flesch’s 78 dropped him into a tie for fifth with Phil
Mickelson and Padraig Harrington.
The
beginning of the end for Woods came at the end of Amen
Corner, the 510-yard 13th. He drove it left into the
pine straw, but punched back out on the fairway and then
spun his approach back about four feet below the hole
with an excellent chance at a birdie.
But he
missed.
Not one
of Tiger’s best weeks
Gone was
the memory of his 30-foot birdie putt at the 10th, and
just as gone was his best shot at catching up. Woods
also missed a three-footer for birdie at the fourth.
Woods
played the par-five holes in four under, equaling the
worst he has done at the Masters as a pro. He was also
four under on the par-fives in 2003.
His 11
birdies for the week were just one more than his worst
total at last year’s Masters.
“I just
didn’t make any putts all week,” Woods said. “All week,
I was dragging the blade through. I just didn’t quite
have it.
“You
have bad weeks, you have good weeks. Certainly this week
was not one of my best.”
At least
Woods was in good company with his misery. One by one,
the contenders fell by the grassy wayside. Casey, who
started the day in fourth, dropped six shots in a
five-hole stretch on the front, a distasteful period
called double bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey and
wound up with a 79.
“It’s
very difficult to rationalize,” Casey said.
Flesch
was at even par for the day through 11 holes, but
knocked it into the water at the 12th to make double
bogey, then slipped out of sight with a four-bogey
stretch starting at the 14th.
“I was
trying to make birdies. I just was making bogeys
instead,” Flesch said.
Snedeker
eagled the second, but had eight bogeys the rest of the
way. He held a towel to his face and wept after he
signed his scorecard and reflected on his
disappointment.
“It’s
one of those things,” he said. “You’ve got of kind of
pick yourself up, realize what you did wrong and go fix
it.”
Lefty
gets it wrong
Mickelson’s demise package arrived a day earlier, when
he shot 75 on Saturday, and he was too far back to make
much of a statement. Mickelson finished with an even par
round of 72 and a keen understanding of what it means to
fall short.
“I was
hoping, obviously, to make more of a run than I did, but
it was a tough day today, and I felt like I had to fight
pretty hard to keep it around par,” he said.
And so
it went the right way for Immelman, who was a scratch
player by the age of 12, after starting to learn to play
when he was five. Mark Immelman served as his younger
brother’s first teacher.
He made
the cut in the 1999 Masters as an amateur after winning
the 1998 US Public Links. Two years earlier he had
played—and lost—in the finals of the British Amateur,
the New Zealand Amateur and the US Junior Amateur.
As a
member of the PGA Tour, Immelman has just one victory,
but he’s won five times worldwide. Then, last December,
he wondered if he would play golf again when he had a
brush with apparent cancer. Surgeons removed an
eight-pound benign tumor from behind his ribcage.
Immelman
said he realized at that time that golf wasn’t his
entire life, but then decided to rededicate himself to
it, anyway.
And only
a few months later, there’s a new green jacket in his
wardrobe.
How does
this happen? Nick Daugherty is only 25, and he was
playing in his first Masters, but had an idea.
“I
think,” said Daugherty, “a lot of it is karma.”
That’s
as good an explanation as any. |
