GREATEST SHOTS/Number 23 ... Larry Mize: 1987 US Masters: Even for the very best golfers, it is the game's unpredictability that can be its most magnetic attraction.

As Harvey Penick, one of golf's foremost teachers, once observed: "A golfer rarely needs to hit a spectacular shot unless the one that precedes it was pretty bad." And, in many ways, that is what happened to Larry Mize in that fateful play-off in the US Masters of 1987, when he produced a finishing and championship-winning shot that will always be remembered.

On that Sunday in April, Mize, who had never contested a major before, and who hasn't done so since, showed that there is the capacity to produce something special in all professionals. Before the start of the championship, few had given the local man from Augusta much chance; and, although he forced his way into a three-way play-off - with Seve Ballesteros and Greg Norman - when birdieing the 72nd hole, most believed that he would only play a bit part in the drama that would surely unfold.

How wrong people can be. Ballesteros, however, fell by the wayside at the first hole of sudden-death and, so, it was down to a head-to-head with Norman, a duel that many believed would be beyond Mize. And, when he pushed his five-iron approach to the right of the 11th green on the second hole of the play-off, it all seemed to be going as everyone thought it would. Norman, so often the bridesmaid amid the flora of Augusta National, looked destined to finally get his hands on a green jacket when putting his approach on to the right fringe, not 50 feet from the hole.

In truth, from where Mize was positioned, it looked for all the world as if he would do well simply to get it up and down for par, and that a bogey was not out of the question.

Instead, Mize, who had earlier made a 20-footer for par on that same hole during his final round, had other ideas. He was 40 yards right of the pin but it was on the same line as the par putt he had made earlier in the day.

"I knew I couldn't land it on the green," he recalled. He took his trusty Jack Nicklaus MacGregor sand wedge - a new back-up club that he had only placed in his bag that week - and took his time over the shot that he would play.

"I'll just hit a good chip shot," I said to myself, "and put some pressure back on him."

When Mize had his mind fully made up, he played a bump and run. "I bumped it a yard or two in front of the green. I had to pitch it low," he said. "I had to give the ball a chance. I had to hit it a firm, aggressive chip. It looked good all the way."

"I jumped so high I could probably have dunked a basketball, and normally I can't," said Mize. "It was the biggest golf thrill I've ever had, and you could tell by my reaction. I almost went into orbit."

Norman, who had been kicked in the teeth before in major championships, most outrageously when Bob Tway holed his bunker shot in the 1986 US PGA championship the previous year, remarked afterwards: "I thought Larry's shot was harder than Bob's in the PGA. It was probably 30 per cent harder. I couldn't believe it. If he missed, it would have been four or five feet by. He might stand there for three days and not make it."

Shortly after Mize won the Masters, Lee Trevino said: "Larry's a good young player. Now that he's won this big tournament, he's gonna take off!" It didn't quite work out that way, but the chip shot was one that ensured he would at least be called a major champion.

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