Nick Faldo, 2010 Masters Tournament, Par-3 Contest
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The Masters Interview
Nick Faldo With three green jackets to his name – thanks to wins in 1989, 1990 and 1996 – the 53-year-old Englishman is a true Masters legend. Here he talks about his debut at Augusta, his brilliant come-frombehind win against Greg Norman 15 years ago and who he thinks has the best chance of coming out on top this time around INTERVIEW BY ALEX JENKINS PHOTOGRAPHY BY AFP
“The Masters is not the place to go if your game isn’t firing on all cylinders. You’ll get caught out very quickly.”
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our first golfing memory was watching the 1971 Masters as a 13-year-old. Eight years later you made your debut at Augusta. What are your memories of that experience? It was very intimidating, it really was. I arrived and although I’d seen Augusta on television I really had no idea of the scale of the place. The first thing that strikes you is the undulations, which get flattened out on TV – the course is really very hilly. But the conditioning too is amazing. However many hundred acres of just perfect fairways – that was remarkable seeing for the first time. In those days the Masters was an invitational tournament in the truest sense of the word and the looks I received from some of the old boys – as if to say, ‘Who's that guy?’ – was daunting too. But you seemed to have figured it out OK by making the cut. What advice would you give a Masters debutant? It is possible to get over the mystique of Augusta on your first trip there? I don’t think you ever get over the mystique. My advice for anyone making the debut is to arrive very early. Go the week before, get settled in, figure out your route from the locker room to the first tee, learn how everything works and so on – things like will help you feel a lot more comfortable by the time it comes to hit your first tee shot. The key to Augusta is the greens. Certainly I’d never played on greens like them before and it takes a long time to appreciate that you need to play different types of chips than you’re used to because of their slopes and speed. I remember practicing one- and two-yard chips because a lot of the time that was the only way to stop the ball anywhere near the hole.
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Masters Magician (clockwise from bottom): A brilliant final-round 67 in 1996 earned Faldo his third green jacket; offering some advice to Greg Norman, his defeated opponent, on how to handle the media; the Englishman has made the transistion from golf course to TV tower seamlessly
You haven’t played the tournament for the past few years because of commentary commitments with CBS. Don’t you ever get the urge to say to them, ‘Sorry guys, I fancy playing this year’? [Laughs] No. I love being involved at the Masters with what I do now for CBS and I get a great deal of satisfaction from it too. My playing days are behind me – and to be honest, the Masters is not the place to go if your game isn’t firing on all cylinders. You’ll get caught out very quickly. I love that I can still be involved in the tournament though. Do you ever play Augusta outside of the Masters – don’t past champions get membership? Yes – it has become something of a tradition to play the Sunday before the Masters with my son Matthew. We get out there and blast away and it is great fun. Unfortunately he will be away on work this year and I’ll be away with CBS for the [NCAA] Final Four, so it is going to be a big shame to miss out this time. Past winners of the Masters get honorary membership but you don’t get the same member’s rights. If I wanted to turn up tomorrow I’d still need to play with a member. A lot has been made of the lengthening of Augusta in recent times. What is your view, as a golf course architect, of the changes? I like them and they were necessary, given how far the guys hit it. They wanted to get them hitting similar irons into the greens as we
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used to in the 80s, and I think they’ve achieved that. The subtleties of the course have remained – they haven’t touched the twelfth hole, for example. I am a fan of what they have done. Do you consider 1996, where you overcame Greg Norman on that dramatic final day, as your finest Masters win? All three are incredibly special, but certainly 1996 stands out in a number of ways. That was the best I have even been mentally on a golf course, and to shoot 67 with just one bogey in that kind of situation… well, that is about as good as it gets right there. It also came at a time when I was not at my peak playing-wise – I was getting on a bit in my career – so I was very proud of the way I was able to get it done. It is also without doubt the most famous of my wins. Wherever I am – especially in America – people are constantly reminding me of it. They know I have won the Open too, but they are not always correct about the details – they will say, “You won at Birkdale, right?” and stuff like that. But the Masters in 1996 – everyone seems to remember exactly what happened and when. As soon as the round was over, Norman went and faced the media and ended up staying for an hour talking about what had just happened. Did that surprise you? Absolutely – and huge credit to him for doing that. I couldn’t have done the same. I would have needed to sleep on what happened
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and gone back and done the interviews the next morning. Or maybe just go in and read a statement, get the thing over in five minutes. But credit to Greg. To stand there and take it on the chin… that’s what I said to him on the [eighteenth] green, I said “Don’t let the bastards beat you down” because I knew what was coming. I genuinely felt for the guy on that day because, hey, that would have scarred me if it happened to me.
“I genuinely felt for the guy [Norman] on that day because, hey, that would have scarred me if it happened to me.”
Where does the two-iron you struck into the heart of the thirteenth green during the final round that year rank among your best-ever shots? Oh, right up there. The thing about that shot was the timing [Faldo ended up two-putting to match Norman’s birdie and maintain his twoshot lead]. It came at such a pivotal point in the round. I was originally going to go with the five-wood but the ball wasn’t sitting right, so I switched to the two-iron, which came across as indecision on TV, but it wasn’t. You can’t go left and you can’t go right on that hole, because of the water, which easily brings bogey into play, so yeah, it was a great shot at just the right moment. Which was better – that or Phil Mickelson’s shot from off the pine straw on the same hole last year? [Laughs]. Well Phil’s was def initely a wonderful moment, a real adrenaline moment – it’s great to commentate on a shot like that. I can’t believe how steady these guys are on the pine needles. I hated being on the stuff. Normally my foot would slip as I was making a turn and I’d end up catching the ball heavy and it would only go 50 yards or so. But as a shot his was just fantastic. All the talk leading up to the Masters has been the strength of the European players. Who of them do you like for success at Augusta? Well they’re all in with a shot, aren’t they? [Lee] Westwood, as he showed last year, knows his way around now; Luke Donald is putting beautifully, so if he can maintain that he’ll have a chance. Then there’s [Ian] Poulter and Paul Casey’s game has always suited Augusta. I thought when [Alvaro] Quiros won the other month [in Dubai], with his length, if he can keep it straight, then he’ll have such short irons into the greens that he could be another. Rory [McIlroy] seems to have gone off the boil of late, but he, like Casey, is one that you expect to do well there. And of course Martin Kaymer. He’s the world number one and he doesn’t get fazed easily, which is a huge attribute to have. HKGOLFER.COM
Do you take any credit for Kaymer’s rise, given his work – particularly the strategic and mental aspects of the game – with Fanny Sunesson, your former caddie? It’s funny. I saw him the other week hit a chip shot and thought, ‘hey, that looks like me.’ But it was a very smart move getting involved with Fanny; she’s helped him a lot and they do a lot of good work together. She’s taken the experience of working with me for 10 years and passing on aspects of what she learned to him. He has essentially been fast tracked. Martin is a fine player with a great mind. And a final word on Tiger Woods. Can he contend at the Masters, despite the swing changes he’s going through? It’s going to be very hard, because he just doesn’t look comfortable. You can never say never with Tiger but he has hit so many shots recently that for him are sideways. When you go from hitting it perfectly – which he did for so long – to not being able to control it like you want to then it can affect you mentally as well. There’s not much confidence there. And his putting will have to get a whole lot better very soon. You can’t win at Augusta without putting unbelievably well, and he has been struggling on the greens. It’ll be a struggle, but on the plus side few know the course better. – As told to Alex Jenkins HK Golfer・APR 2011
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