Casey and Couples eye their Masters chance

IF Paul Casey and Fred Couples were selling confidence, they’d likely find Rory McIlroy at the top of the queue just a week before he makes his second appearance in the Masters at Augusta National.

Casey won last year’s Shell Houston Open, came home tied 20th in the Masters the following week and then jumped to third in the world rankings by winning the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.

It looked as though nothing could go wrong for the Cheltenham thoroughbred but a rib injury suffered in mid-summer effectively ended his season and he was sidelined for five months.

Since then, Casey has made a remarkable recovery, reaching the final of the WGC-Accenture Match Play in Tucson and racking up top 10 finishes in the Honda Classic and the WGC-CA Championship at Doral in his last two starts.

As a result his confidence is sky high as he defends his title at Redstone Golf Club and heads to Augusta with high hopes of becoming the first Englishman to win a major since Nick Faldo donned a green jacket in 1996.

“I feel ready, yeah,” Casey said in Houston. “To me, now the next eight, 10 years, I’ve got to capitalise on that because it’s my chance.”

Casey felt nervous when he came back from injury at Wood’s Chevron World Challenge in December but he cannot fathom how Woods will feel about trying to win the Masters without having hit a competitive shot in anger for five months.

“I mean I get nervous teeing it up in Abu Dhabi after not playing for a month,” Casey said. “In Tiger’s event, I was nervous on two fronts. Is the rib going to stay in one piece and two, what’s going to happen? Am I going to shrank it around? Am I going to put a couple of balls in the crowd and is this going to be embarrassing? What’s going to happen?”

So can he imagine trying, like Woods, to win a major after five months out of the game? “Ehhh ... no,” he said, grinning. “It’s not a good place to be in and I find it difficult to get into the correct thinking if I haven’t played much.

“So I couldn’t imagine what it would be like teeing up at Major Championship after a five month break, but it’s Tiger so I have a sneaky feeling he’ll be absolutely fine.”

So too does Woods’ pal Fred Couples. Winner of his last three starts on the Champions Tour and now one of the favourites to win his second Masters title at Augusta next week, Couples confirmed yesterday that he will play a practice round with Woods at the Masters venue on Monday.

He also declared his confidence that Woods would play in September’s Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor and the 2011 Presidents Cup.

“I’m sure will be going to Wales,” Couples said. “I believe he is ready to start playing and I am sure all his other Ryder Cup team mates will be wanting him on the side.”

As for Woods’s chances at the Masters, Couples said: “Tiger’s the best player in the world and he’s won the thing a bunch of times. He knows how to play the golf course and even at my age, I still learn some of the newer things about Augusta and that’s why I am playing.”

Tipped as a dark horse for the Masters, the 1992 champion was bullish about his chances, adding: “Playing on the Champions Tour has helped in that but personally, I always go into Augusta with a mind that I’ll do well.

“This year by winning three times I feel as though it has helped me in making a crucial putt here or there. So when you get to Augusta you are going to have those on the very first hole and I have been doing very well with my putting this year and that’s a big bonus.”

Pádraig Harrington tees it up with Hunter Mahan and Cameron Beckman at 2.10pm Irish time hoping to continue his run of fine form heading to Augusta.

But McIlroy’s coach Michael Bannon believes his star pupil is just a couple of decent rounds away from regaining his confidence after a string of poor results.

“Like any player, Rory has highs and lows. He had bit of a low there just recently and hopefully we are going to come out of it,” Bannon said in Houston. “He’s a natural golfer so it will come back. He’s just going through a little phase where he has had a couple of bad tournaments.

“Look at Ernie Els. It’s up and down but suddenly it clicks and your confidence is up. If Rory plays badly, his confidence goes down and he’s wondering how in the hell did I ever play well. Then when you are playing well you wonder how did I ever play badly.

“So it’s just confidence and that is nothing unusual in the game of golf. Sometimes it makes a player work that wee bit harder just to get back. We are back to the ground rules again and hopefully he will respond and shoot a couple of good rounds.”