By PAUL GALLAGHER
Magnitude of Masters brought home to Lee
DANNY Lee might be the youngest US Amateur champion and winner of this year’s Johnnie Walker Classic on the European Tour – still as an amateur – but the 18-year-old struggled to overcome the nerves on his Masters debut.
“I’m having really bad nerves at the moment, seriously. All of the crowds . . . I was nervous, really shaking my clubs, and wasn’t swinging properly.
“I’ve never seen that many crowds out there (at Augusta) . . . I’m still nervous.
“When I get nervous I can’t really talk properly, because my nerves are breaking down and I have a stomach ache, too. I’m serious.”
Perhaps he should have adopted the Chi-Chi Rodriguez approach to the problem.
“The first time I played the Masters, I was so nervous I drank a bottle of rum before I teed off. I shot the happiest 83 of my life,” the 73-year-old, eight-time PGA Tour winner, famously said.
Woods and Mickelson maintain frosty rivalry
THERE’S no love lost between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, so when the two best players in the world were paired for the final round of the US Masters there was no telling what would happen.
The frosty body language between the two titans was almost as intriguing as the scintillating golf they produced.
From a seemingly reluctant handshake on the first tee the pair were never going to indulge in idle chit-chat walking the fairways – they were always a distance apart. The final handshake on the 18th was more like two pugilists testing who could give the harder handshake.
Afterwards Mickelson was the more gracious. “It was a lot of fun playing out there with Tiger. We’ve played before but I am usually on the receiving end. The front nine was awesome, it was fun to shoot those birdies, I had the momentum,” said the left-hander.
“You just go about your own business,” added Woods.
Daly relies on bare essentials
JOHN Daly will grace the Baltray fairways in next month’s Irish Open, but let’s hope the two-time major winner brings enough clothes to Ireland. A priceless piece of footage on YouTube revealed the beefy one giving an interview while playing Murder Rock Golf Club in Missouri. The problem was: he did it shirtless and in bare feet with only a scruffy pair of jeans on and a fag constantly hanging out of his mouth.
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6HXfA__e14Opens in new window ]
Driving can damage hearing
IT’S official: golf is bad for your health. Every time a discerning golfer steps onto the tee to launch their titanium driver into action, they run the risk of doing permanent damage to their hearing.
What was that? True. A study carried out by MA Buchanan at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital found the noise titanium drivers make at impact can damage your hearing. The paper (British Medical Journal – December 2008) profiled a 55-year-old man with reduced hearing in his right ear. He described a strike with his King Cobra LD titanium driver as “like a gun going off”.
Other golfers found the same problem. “It can be heard all over the course, it’s mad” and “this is not so much a ting as a sonic boom.”
After sampling six different drivers for the coefficient of restitution (cor) between club and ball at impact, the paper concluded the Ping G10 was loudest and that in general “thin-faced titanium drivers may produce sufficient sound to induce temporary, or even permanent, cochlear damage in susceptible individuals”.
Player bows out
GARY Player competed in his 52nd and final US Masters last week. Quite a feat for the 73-year-old South African – one year of his life spent at Augusta.
“The hole is getting the size of a Bayer aspirin, you wonder whether you can press it in or squeeze it in there,” said the Black Knight.
He might be a nine-time major winner, but the truth is greats like Player should have stepped aside years ago. Nostalgia is all well and good, but the Masters shouldn’t be a parade. Fine, play the par-three event, become another honorary starter, but let genuine contenders compete.
