Danny Willett in early hunt at Masters after early return from shoulder surgery

Danny Willett was due to be sidelined for 18 months post shoulder surgery but has completed the first round of the Masters in Augusta after just six months.

EARLY RETURN: Coming back from left shoulder surgery six months ago that was supposed to sideline him for a year to 18 months, Danny Willett put himself in the early hunt for a second green jacket. Pic: AP Photo/Matt Slocum

Coming back from left shoulder surgery six months ago that was supposed to sideline him for a year to 18 months, Danny Willett put himself in the early hunt for a second green jacket.

Willett, the 2016 Masters champion, fired a 4-under 68 on Thursday, making birdies on three of his last four holes to post the early clubhouse lead before Bryson DeChambeau sailed past him. It was impressive stuff from the ailing 37-year-old Englishman, who made seven birdies on the day.

“It's unexpected, isn't it?” said Willett. “No, practice has been good. Again, it was never an issue of whether or not the shoulder was strong enough, it was whether or not I could hit the shots I wanted to. … I had no idea what to expect, so yeah, it's obviously always nice to come in having shot a decent score, and just give yourself that little bit of confidence inside and hopefully have a nice few more days.” 

Willett last teed it up at Wentworth in the BMW PGA Championship last September, gutting out a tie for 67th despite searing pain from a shoulder tear that he exacerbated by continuing to play with it. An MRI revealed that the tear had doubled in size during the week at Wentworth, so he had to shut it down and undergo surgery. His doctors told him he would be out of the game for 12 to 18 months.

“It was something that needed doing,” Willett told the DP World Tour earlier this week at Augusta National.

“Week in, week out, it was painful, and you’re training so much just to try and get it into a place where you can think you can be able to move and swing a golf club all week, but ultimately, when the doctors went into the shoulder, it was worse than what we thought. In the end it’s a good decision, and mentally I’ve come around to the fact that it needed doing, and I needed to do it now.” 

Willett said his team didn’t figure he’d be able to play only six months later in the Masters, but here he is. He didn’t make the decision to give it a try until after a Sunday practice round.

“I played Sunday with a friend of mine, and I played all right,” he said. “A lot of it was just getting used to the visuals again of the golf course. … After the Augusta National Women's (Amateur), it was firm, it was fast, and I played all right, so I was like, you know what, there's a sniff.

“We played 27, woke up the next day, no pain, no nothing, walked it. And that was kind of like, all right, even if you play bad I think it's still worthwhile taking the risk and at least pegging it up and feed off people's energy around here and hopefully have a few good days.” 

Willett told the DP World Tour that he spent six weeks in a 90-degree cast that he could only take off to shower, and spent four months doing an extensive daily rehab routine that included ice baths, saunas and gym work.

"I'm a relatively gritty human being,” he said. “And we just had a great team of people that was helping with the rehab and I made it my goal to kind of do that every day. You know, my job for three or four months was to get up and do all the boring stuff that I needed to do to make sure that the movement was there. I really invested in myself.” 

Whether it was just the high coming off the round or not, Willett was feeling no pain in the immediate aftermath.

“I feel all right. I think I might take the next six months off,” he said. “No, it's completely unexpected. Sometimes that happens, whatever. You make a couple of birdies and your mind starts thinking, all right, I can do it. It was nice to keep chilled out.

“Again, because it was playing tough, probably really made us concentrate that little bit more. Nice finish there and them last four holes to come back, and instead of posting an all right score of level-ish – which would, again, for me have been an amazing achievement – but to shoot 68, yeah, really happy.”