IT'S likely that US Masters competitors will hardly notice that the traditional riot of colour is missing from Amen Corner this year. To an anticipated attendance of 200,000, however, it will be a major disappointment to discover that all the flowers are gone.

While showing a newcomer around golf's most beautiful arena yesterday, I certainly became aware of the difference. Nature has played a nasty trick on the organisers, who pride themselves on getting everything right, sometimes with the help of iced water sprays. The dogwoods and azaleas have already come and gone.

"This spring is the earliest we've seen in 17 years," said a local expert. "We missed it big time. The weather arrived two or three weeks earlier than usual."

He went on to assure us that some of the azaleas around Amen Corner have been planted in a special mix to ensure their survival, but I could see little evidence of them, except behind the 15th green.

"It's normally like a garden centre around here," said a disappointed British golf photographer, Phil Sheldon. "They're so beautiful you almost feel like digging them up and taking them home. But I'm afraid the view this year is dull by Augusta standards."

Still, the course looked to be in superb condition as a elite field began their final preparations for the first major championship of the year. Among them was Brad Faxon, who enhanced his earlier qualification by winning the Freeport McDermott Classic at New Orleans on Sunday.

As he stood outside the clubhouse yesterday, people came up to congratulate him, naturally. Yet he appeared somewhat surprised when a member of the blue rinse brigade shrilled, "Brad, Brad, how are you, you old devil?" And he was decidedly taken aback when she ran towards him with arms outstretched.

At the critical moment, however, she swept past Faxon and straight into the arms of Brad Krosnoff, the grey haired caddie of David Ogrin. Looking a little awkward, Faxon turned back to his friends, hoping nobody had noticed. But we had.

One of the most interesting caddies here this week is Mike "Fluff" Cowan, who has gained a new lease on his golfing life with Tiger Woods, after 19 years with Peter Jacobsen. "I think Fluff's the best caddie in the world," said Woods recently.

But using his own PG pronunciation of the common barnyard epithet, Cowan protests: "Any caddie who thinks he makes the player is full of bullscheidt. It's the player who makes the caddie. We are not the show. Any caddie who thinks he is, isn't going to last long."

Referring to their coming together at Milwaukee last Augus Cowan said of Woods: "It took me two days - the practice day and the pro-am - to club Tiger. When we got to the first tee on Thursday, he looked at me and said - `What do you like?'"

Cowan, who lives with his wife in Columbus, Ohio, handed the youngster the driver and Woods hit it high and straight down the middle. It went 337 yards before coming to a stop, but as the caddie says, the momentum is still rolling. "I don't know why we hit it off so well," said Woods. "I just think we see eye to eye on a lot of thins, especially golf."

So, does Cowan view his young master as a genius? Not quite. Genius, to the grey moustacheod caddie, is Jerry Garcia, the late, lamented leader of the Grateful Dead. Indeed, when Garcia died two summers ago, Cowan went into mourning for two weeks before bouncing back into action, just like a piece of fluff, which earned him his nickname.