Ready to master Augusta

PAUL McGINLEY strolled from the Augusta National locker room to the practice range as if he was beginning his preparation for just another run-of-the-mill tournament instead of his second tilt at the Masters.

He was a picture of robust good health and fitness, without an extra pound on his 39-year-old, 5’ 8’’, 12-stone body.

After a magnificent end to the 2005 campaign, when he lost to US Open champion Michael Campbell in the final of the World Match Play Championship and then captured the Volvo Masters at Valderrama, he could hardly be said to have hit the ground running this year. A share of 12th in the AT&T pro-am at Pebble Beach and a tie for seventh in the Qatar

Masters augured well but he lost in the first round of the World Match Play Championship in California and a fortnight ago, he missed the cut in the Players’ Championship at Sawgrass, the first time he hadn’t completed all 72 holes since the Smurfit European Open at The K-Club last July.

McGinley’s caddie Darren Reynolds reckons his boss is “85% of the way” to being a certainty for the European Ryder Cup team but McGinley is taking nothing for granted.

Four years ago, he came to Augusta hoping for little more than to make the cut; having done so after rounds of 72 and 74, he then went all out for a top 16 finish that would have clinched his place in the field a year later. He shot two 71s but missed out by a shot and tied for 18th.

“My memory of 2002 is that Augusta and Masters were everything I thought they’d be and more,” said McGinley. “I had pretty high expectations when I saw Sawgrass for the first time, but I was a bit disappointed. It was a little more bland than it appeared on TV. But this place is not bland. It has a special aura, it’s a special place. The atmosphere, the buzz. Fantastic. I have no clear recollection of how I missed the top 16 by a shot. I played well on the final day, I birdied 15 and parred 16 and 17 and then made a 15-footer for par on 18 after hitting it in the right bunker.

“I though that putt had made it for me but at the time it didn’t bother me because I was top 50 in the world and thought I was going to be there the following year but obviously I wasn’t. Now, I want to get a feel for the place again as quickly as possible; a feel for the speed of the greens, a feel for the way the ball reacts, a feel for the kinds of shots I’ll be hitting. Practice to a large extent dictates your strategy.

Form comes and goes, some weeks it’s there, some times it’s not, you don’t panic. Last week was a busy one for me because I practiced and practiced down at Eoghan O’Connell’s club at West Palm Beach. The greens were running at 13 on stimpmetre, it was rock hard and so a good place to prepare for this week.”

Nearly every professional (and too many amateurs) fancy themselves as golf course architects. Few, however, hold as sincere and strong views as McGinley, who has designed a course at MacReddin Brook in County Wicklow and has frequently criticised the trend towards longer courses. So what was he expecting of the “new Augusta” having played just one hole, the 1st, on his arrival here on Sunday?

“I think a lot of the changes are going to be hidden this week because we’re going to have good weather,” he reasoned. “We’re going to have firm fairways and you’ll see the ball rolling out. I don’t think it is going to be a big issue. The issue would be if it got cold and rainy which it has done in the past. I played the 1st slightly into the breeze; hit a decent drive and a six iron to the green. My instinct at the moment is you are going to find a lot of the changes will be hidden and less severe and less talked about because the weather is going to be quite kind.”

McGinley is philosophical about how two successive par fives, the 10th and 11th, measure over 500 yards at Augusta while the “short” 4th is now playing to 240 yards. He readily accepts that he doesn’t like that kind of thing or that the way to cope with all the technology is to just add more length to the golf courses. But he did note: “When you see Nicklaus and Palmer criticising so severely, you stand up and take notice. They are the guys to answer those kind of questions. I’ve played here once before and I am in no position to criticise the course or the changes. I wouldn’t have designed a 240-yard par 3 with rhododendron bushes five yards off the back of the green and a huge bunker 25 foot deep in front of it. But from what I have seen of the changes, I think they could suit me. On the first, the bottleneck now is 320, whereas before some of the guys could belt it over the sand and hit sand wedge in. Now they can’t. They might hit three wood to the position I’m hitting driver. That one hole is not going to hurt me.”

Realistically, the Irishman is a rank outsider this week and deep down would probably admit as much. But the time when he might have been intimidated by a challenge of this nature has passed. Still, he laughed at the memory of being handed the number two player’s badge in 2002. That one goes to the player who registers first. He was that keen to get here. So what about number one? Well, that goes to the then defending champion, who happened to be Tiger Woods.

“I’m a more seasoned pro, I’ve two Ryder Cups under my belt since the last time I played here, I’ve won some tournaments and competed on the world stage much more,” he says. “I am a better package. You’ve really got to know the place and understand it. They’ve lengthened it and put in the rough, from what I’ve read and what I’ve seen, it was very much a case of hit it and work it down the fairway. The fairways were bowling alleys. You could hit them down left and right and make a decision. Now you’ve got to hit the fairway because coming out of that semi-rough into rock hard greens is not great, particularly with the way pins are tucked.”

Of all the many great holes at Augusta, the short 16th stands out as his favourite. Paul describes it as a “little amphitheatre” while suggesting that the more renowned 12th “is weird because the crowd is so far away”. “You hit your shot and the crowd is 160 yards away. I remember holing a putt for birdie from 12 feet one day and silence for three seconds and then a muted cheer. They didn’t know if the ball was in the hole or not. It is very pretty and scenic but the real aura is around 16.”