HooperstarGolfer: The Masters on HooperstarGolfer.blogspot.co.uk April 7

Welcome to The Masters on HooperstarGolfer.blogspot.co.uk

A unique series of blogs taking you inside the history of Golf''s First Major and looking ahead to the 2013 Masters, as well as providing updates on the play and reports from each day of the first major of the golf season.

I hope you enjoy the series which will publish articles each day between April 1 and 15 EXCLUSIVELY on www.HooperstarGolfer.blogspot.co.uk

All feedback is appreciated.

Enjoy.

Matt.

The weekend of April 6 and 7, 2011 will be one I will never forget. It was when I arrived in St Andrews to begin my first season as a St Andrews Links Caddie and it was the weekend of Golf's First Major, The 75^th Masters. That weekend the weather was absolutely spectacular, nice and warm with brilliant sunshine and the journey up from my home town in Wiltshire, England to the East Coast of Fife was fantastic as I was starting a new chapter in my life and career. I was especially looking forward to moving in, unpacking and going to meet one of my best friends, his wife, father and uncle in town to watch the third round of The Masters and enjoy a few drinks in the best golfing scene you will find in any St Andrews bar.

The Dunvegan Hotel is just a 112-yard walk from the 18^th green of the Old Course and is by far the best bar for watching golf in within St Andrews, it has an atmosphere unlike any other with many golfers having played during the day choosing to spend their evenings sat drinking, eating and watching the golf on the HD televisions. The Hotel was acquired by Jack and Sheena Willoughby in 1994, both are avid golfers and as such the golfer is made more than welcome with staff getting to know the customer and more than willing and able to talk golf with you. Numerous celebrities and world golfing stars have frequented the bar over the years and to be in there both nights of Masters weekend truly was something very special, especially for the 2011 Masters weekend.

Rory McIlroy and I share a great friend, and he (the friend) made for hilarious and painful viewing over the weekend with the ups and downs of one his best friends on the verge of winning a first Major championship and Green Jacket. Rory began the weekend at 10-under-par, two strokes clear of Jason Day at the top of the leaderboard and three clear of Tiger Woods, the 21-year-old was on the verge of fulfilling his immense early potential by claiming one of the biggest titles in sport. Saturday is known as moving day and plenty of players attempted to challenge McIlroy's position at the top with Angel Cabrera and Adam Scott posting 67's to move up the leaderboard, but a steady 70 from the Northern Irishman including a critical and inspired downhill putt at the 17^th gave him a four-stroke lead at the close of the third round.

On the face of it he held a commanding advantage, but even though he was four ahead of the rest only four strokes covered the next sixteen players on the leaderboard and four players were tied for second. Any slip from McIlroy and there were many quality golfers ready to pounce. Were we set for the crowning of golf's new king? Would a star come roaring through to upset the Ulsterman? Either way we were set for another exciting conclusion to Golf's First Major, but nobody at that stage knew just how exciting.

Masters Sunday began for myself with going to the local Morrisons store to buy some food and essentials on my first morning as a St Andrews resident, again there was glorious sunshine and warm temperatures on the Fife coast. Spring had well and truly arrived. My friend, his father and uncle were playing golf at the nearby stunning links of Kingsbarns, so I spent the afternoon walking around town familiarizing myself with St Andrews, I had been there many times before I moved there but it is always special walking around the historic streets of the Home of Golf. Once the guys had finished playing golf I went to meet them at the Dunvegan for what everyone hoped would be an exciting and happy time watching Rory McIlroy become Masters champion. The sense of anticipation was immense.

The drama and excitement of Masters Sunday began at the first hole on an evening that will live long in the memory for anyone who was in the Dunvegan on that April night. Immediately you knew something very special was set to occur when Charl Schwartzel, another outrageous young talent, pushed his approach to the first green and then played a sublimely rolling chip into the hole for a quite amazing birdie to cut the deficit on McIlroy to three shots. Rory opened in exactly the fashion he would have had nightmares about overnight reaching the green safely enough but taking three nervous putts to make an unsettling bogey and within seconds his lead was gone, Charl Schwartzel had joined him at the top. In great rounds there is almost always a moment of truly outrageous brilliance and for Schwartzel this came at the third hole, he spun his approach to the 350-yard par four third hole for an eagle to start 3-under for the first 3.

But unfortunately for Rory it wasn't just Charl Schwartzel coming after him, the Ulsterman showed weakness and the best players in the world circled like a shark around a helpless swimmer in the sea, and soon they would devour him. Four-time Champion Tiger Woods made birdies at the 2^nd, 3^rd, 6^th and 7^th to offset a bogey at the 4^th to pull to within three of Rory and Charl at the top, by now my friend was clearly tense as he watched one of his closest friends struggle in the early stages of the final round. The 21-year-old made a par at the par five second hole before missing a golden opportunity to make birdie at the third, his six-foot putt slid by in a sign of real nerves and tension created by his and Schwartzel's start, now it really was game on. He parred the fourth and then an almighty cheer from the 8^th where Tiger Woods played a superb second shot to within ten feet of the hole and rolled in the putt for eagle, this brought him to ten-under and tied with Schwartzel who had made a bogey at the fifth, one stroke behind Rory at the top.

Then came the mistake which really set the tournament alight from McIlroy at the fifth, he drove into the left fairway bunker and attempting a daring recovery shot the ball crashed into the lip, the ball managed to get out of the trap but would then find the bunker through the green and wound up taking bogey to fall into a tie with Woods and Schwartzel. Tiger had made up seven shots on Rory and suddenly 5 and 6 players had the chance to claim the green jacket. But finally something positive came for Rory at the seventh, rolling in a fifteen foot birdie putt to take the lead on his own again and when Woods made a bogey at the 12^th and McIlroy had daylight once again. It didn't make things any easier for the Irishman who made poor pars at both the eighth and ninth, still Rory held the lead with 9 holes to play on Masters Sunday. And if you had offered that to him at the start of the week he would have bitten your hand off. That is of course if you hadn't have seen the first three days when he played peerless golf and led the field a merry dance, the front nine was a struggle and the tension was building, and about to explode with one swipe of his driver.

A quick, out of rhythm swing pulled the ball miles to the left and it hit the trees and went further left, so far left it was in the front garden of the cabins, most people didn't even know that they were in bounds. Rory recovered to put himself back in play but followed this with a pulled wood down to the side of the green where he would proceed to hit the trees again and wound up taking seven on a par four to fall to 8-under and seventh place. A four-putt double-bogey at the 12^th and a pulled drive into the hazard on 13 wrecked any hopes McIlroy had of holding on to a chance of victory, it was sheer hell for Rory stood drooped over his club on the 13^th tee and it was just as bad for all of us in the Dunvegan, especially my friend. It was at this point that he decided he couldn't watch any more and he left the Dunvegan with his wife, uncle and father bitterly disappointed at what had transpired. I stayed on to watch one of the truly great finishes in Masters history.

As McIlroy exited stage left Tiger Woods posted the target in the clubhouse of 10-under-par, setting the mark which the remaining contenders had to match or pass on a wild last six holes. Angel Cabrera, Luke Donald, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Geoff Ogilvy and Charl Schwartzel all had the opportunity to seize the chance of glory at Augusta, and at one stage there was a five-way tie for the lead. But it all came down to three Australians and a South African. No Australian had ever claimed the green jacket so for there to be three in with a chance at the same time was quite extraordinary, Geoff Ogilvy made 5 birdies in a row to get himself involved in the huge tie for the lead but he couldn't get beyond 10-under-par and had to settle for the same score in the clubhouse as Tiger Woods. Adam Scott birdied the 14^th to break the tie but was joined by Schwartzel, who made a good birdie from the back of the 15^th green to reach 11-under with three holes to play. Scott then evoked memories of Nicklaus '86 further with a superb tee shot at the par three 16^th to set up another birdie to reach 12-under. The South African however would just not be denied.

Schwartzel played a decent tee shot on the 16^th and rolled in the putt from 15 feet to match Scott and would then repeat the trick at the 17^th and 18^th to take a quite remarkable victory with a round of 66 and a historical finish. Nobody had ever made four birdies to finish to win The Masters Tournament, Schwartzel birdied 15, 16, 17 and 18 to go along with his remarkable start he had a truly unbelievable finish to end one of the truly great Masters of my or anyone else's lifetime. It was as heart pumping as it was heartbreaking, it was thrill-a-second stuff from the first hole to the last and it was the exact example you would want to give of The Masters to an alien who had landed on planet earth that April Sunday afternoon.