In the early stages of the Masters a man of advancing years, his coat undone and braces bulging, made his way to the par-three 4th. Sandy Lyle, the first British winner back in 1988, found the bunker, twice chipped off green and made a quadruple bogey. He finished with a round of 81. Not for the first time it made you wonder why the old champions keep coming back.
One of the quirks of the Masters is the lifetime exemption for past winners. It means spectators are often greeted to the sight of jaded dreamers lumbering around an ever-longer Augusta with the joie de vivre of haemorrhoids. Ian Woosnam, the 1991 champion, said he was quitting a few years ago. He had a back operation in 2019 and sat out last year but arrived with the pre-tournament aim of playing a pain-free round, while admitting that he has been in pain for 20 years. He lamented the hills, but this is Augusta; nobody is over the hill. “It is a hard walk and I’ve just pulled a muscle in my groin and back,” he said after what was, in the circumstances, a brilliant 76. “I’m playing on one leg so I’m pretty damn pleased.”
This is his 30th Masters. His problems were bothering him from the first drive. Woosnam said that he felt he was still good enough to play. “I just can’t get my body good enough to play.” The Welshman, 63, conceded that he may have to pull out, but this may be the last time and so he quickly amended that to “being as I’m stupid I will probably play”.
On the one hand you can understand the desire to come back. You get to experience four days of nostalgia and tubby folk from Middle America treating your career high as if it mattered more than the birth of their own children. The Masters is a time capsule.
Other sports would not do this. This is the world’s greatest tournament, “a tradition like no other” as Jim Nantz, the US broadcaster, repeats with his teatime news gravitas. Yet, at the same time, ten of this year’s field have turned 50. Old runners do not get to trot around at the Olympics. Football did once ask another fifty-something, Diana Ross, to take a penalty at the opening ceremony of the 1994 World Cup, but she scuffed it and never played again. The sight of fading players aspiring to be old shadows conjures up words from Ross’s pomp. Stop. In the name of Davis Love.
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Augusta National has tried to impose an age limit before. Twenty years ago Doug Ford, the 1957 champion, played one hole at the age of 78. Then he withdrew. Letters were sent out to certain past champions suggesting that they turn up for the dinner but ditch any higher goals. There was a backlash from the likes of Jack Nicklaus. And so in 2005 the 73-year-old Billy Casper recorded a round of 106. Well, he didn’t actually record it, keeping the card as a souvenir and withdrawing with a supposed injury.
Lyle, also 63, is not in that league. This is his 40th Masters and he has missed six consecutive cuts, but he did have a 73 last year. Not everyone is of the Tom Watson mindset that there is no point playing unless you have a chance to win. Watson stopped playing at the age of 66. Nicklaus was 65.
Yet there is always an outlier. Watson’s near-miss at the Open aged 59 was one. Bernhard Langer every year at Augusta is another. He dropped shots on the 17th and 18th yesterday and was still only two over after a round of 74.
The old champs show the two faces of Augusta. It is a golf major and its own tribute act. Joe Long, the 23-year-old British Amateur champion, found it tougher than all but credit him for a birdie on the last in his round of 82. What the Masters tells him is that time is on his side. Loads of it.