Former champ ready to cap amateur dramatics

THE OCCASION was the 2003 US Masters. Tiger Woods was the defending champion, by a distance the game’s finest player and a man who held the American public enthralled.

Ninety per cent of the 40,000-strong crowd milled around Augusta National's first tee just to get a glimpse of the great man.

Standing there, too, was a virtually unknown amateur, Ricky Barnes from Stockton near Sacramento, in California. Masters tradition dictated the holder and the reigning US Amateur champion played together on opening day. It was a prospect that would frighten the living daylights out of anybody. Outwardly, Barnes appeared to be one of the calmest people in the whole of Georgia, but you suspected he had to be churning up inside. He talked about the experience yesterday at The K-Club as he prepared for the Smurfit European Open starting over the new South (or Smurfit) Course tomorrow.