In the second part of our feature celebrating the 20th anniversary of Ian Woosnam’s Masters victory, the Welshman looks back on his Augusta battle with Tom Watson.
As a boxer in his younger days Ian Woosnam was accustomed to a good scrap but the 1991 Masters Tournament would have to rank as one of the Welshman’s toughest fights.
Not only did Woosnam have to battle the famed intricacies of Augusta National, one of the world’s most unforgiving courses, and Tom Watson, one of the finest exponents of the game and a two time former Masters winner, he also had to contend with a partisan crowd.
Seemingly the odds were stacked heavily against the farmer’s son from the small town of Oswestry on Welsh/English border.
Yet if ever the phrase ‘it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog’ applied, it was for Woosnam, who at 5ft 4½ inches tall is used to overcoming a size disadvantage on the golf course.
That was certainly the case 20 years ago. Having assumed the mantle of World Number One on the Monday of the 1991 Masters Tournament following his victory in the USF&G Classic in New Orleans a fortnight previously, Woosnam’s ebullient confidence was soon moderated by an opening round 72 in which he struggled to adapt to Augusta’s challenging greens.
With his tee-to-green game working a dream, Woosnam took drastic action which turned around his bid to become the fourth consecutive European to wear the Green Jacket, following Sandy Lyle in 1988 and Sir Nick Faldo in 1989 and 1990.
“I changed my putter after the first round,” he recalled. “I went from a Ping to a Tad Moore which although I felt I wasn’t putting any better from three to four feet, it was significant in my confidence on the greens in Augusta. It seemed to do the trick.”
Rounds of 66 and 67 followed as the Welshman propelled himself into contention and a final round clash with Watson and Spaniard José Maria Olazábal, who would go on to win the Green Jacket three years later and again in 1998.
If Woosnam had been prepared for the battle of a lifetime, what he had not expected was the crowd’s reaction.
“I played the last two days with Tom – one of my heroes in golf!” recalled Woosnam. “I feel playing with Tom gave me a boost because he played a similar kind of game to me. He’s the sort of guy that’ll tell you you’ve hit a good shot, when you have.
“I had some complications in the last round around the 13 and 14 with someone yelling out, ‘This is not a links course, this is Amen Corner’.
“What they didn’t realise was that the comment made me more determined and after that, Tom said he used to get that sort of thing when he played against Jack Nicklaus. “Don’t worry about it”, he told me. Basically, that was nice of him to say that.”
The ‘complication’ had occurred when Woosnam hooked a drive into Rae’s Crek at the long 13th hole, a mistake that was greeted by cheers from small sections of the galleries much to his consternation.
“That was bad,” he said. “I was very disappointed after having to wait 20 minutes on the tee, then hitting it in the creek and the crowd started yelling.
“At that point, I thought it had come back onto the fairway. Obviously, it’d gone in the creek and it felt like the crowd was against me. The big man against the little man! It felt I was back in the boxing ring!”
By the time they got to the 18th tee, Woosnam had a one shot lead over Watson on 12 under, with Olazábal in the clubhouse on 11 under after a five on the last.
With his adrenalin pumping Woosnam let fly, driving the ball way past Sandy Lyle’s bunker on the left hand side.
“Tom hit into the trees on the right and for me at the time, the best option was to try to go over the bunkers into a place which was safe, which is what I did.
“In the end Tom took six, I came up short of the green in two and I was going to chip my third shot. I was a little nervous and decided to putt. It went to eight foot and I was lucky enough to have a putt which was right to left, with suited my eye being a right hander.
“My caddie, Wobbly, agreed with me - one ball outside the right - and the rest is history. It was every young golfers dream.
“I was lucky enough to have a feeling that, if I missed the putt, there would be a play-off anyway, which made it a little easier. Receiving that Green Jacket from Nick Faldo was a great feeling.”
As Woosnam returns to Augusta National to mark the 20th anniversary of his victory this week, it may be more a case of a trip down Memory Lane than Magnolia Lane.
