Interview: Sir Nick Faldo

It’s 25 years since I defeated Scott Hoch in a sudden-death play-off to win the Masters. It remains my greatest Augusta memory and one of my career highlights.

I headed into the Masters in 1989 feeling frustrated. I’d been playing in America since the beginning of the season and had been hitting the ball pretty well, but the results just weren’t showing through. I kept messing up, taking a silly seven here and missing a few putts there. When I arrived at Augusta, I bumped into Jack Nicklaus and he asked me how I was playing. I told him that I didn’t know whether to relax and let things happen or try to make things happen. He said, “Yeah, I know what you mean,” which I remember thinking wasn’t a whole lot of help!

But I must have found something that week because I found myself leading after 27 holes. I’d shot my first ever sub-par round at Augusta with an opening 68 and I started to feel quite good about my chances. My son Matthew was only three weeks old, so it was a good time for me, personally, too. Maybe that was part of it. You become a dad and you feel amazing. It suddenly puts things into perspective.

Looking back, it was a big help playing with Ben Crenshaw when he won in 1984, because I realised then that you have to putt insanely well to win at Augusta. Watching Ben roll them in from absolutely everywhere was quite an education. However, going into the ’89 tournament, I wasn’t happy with my putting and was searching for something different. I tried a Bullseye putter early in the week – I hadn’t used one of those since I was an amateur – but it felt comfortable in practice.

Actually, it wasn’t just the putter that was different. My whole set of irons were new. The week before at Greensboro I got my first set of Mizunos and put them straight in the bag. I was a Wilson player at the time but they were going through a tough period. Their craftsmen were getting old and moving on and the company just wasn’t getting it right. They were good to me, though, and let me try the Mizunos. They felt like butter. I’d never used anything so soft.

It was such a rollercoaster week. As I said, it had started so well. I was six under going down the 10th on Friday but, inexplicably, played the next 27 holes in eight over. I was partnered with Lee Trevino on Saturday and I guess the vibes just weren’t good between us that day. It was wet and the course was playing very long. We were going nowhere. Play was suspended just as I’d laid up on the par-5 13th. I left myself 50 yards from the pin. I know that because I painstakingly paced it out before leaving the course.

I remember that I went straight to the range and practised my 50-yard shot. I practised it again the next morning, so that when I went back out onto the course, I had the distance dialled in. Of course, I popped it in to six feet and then missed the putt! In fact, things didn’t get a whole lot better. I finished two over for the last six holes. I was so annoyed with myself; I couldn’t believe I’d screwed it up that badly with a 77. I really was upset.

However, when I got back to the Courtyard Marriott and looked at the draw over breakfast, I gave myself a stern talking to. There was no one on the list that scared me, and there were a lot of people who would be looking to win it for the first time. Why couldn’t that be me? As I headed back to the course, I did have one thought and that was to change my putter. I’d tried the TPA XVIII at the Honda event in Florida and decided I had nothing to lose.

It was funny because I was obviously still a bit down on that 1st tee because Larry Mize said, ‘Good luck’, gentleman that he is, and I think I said something like, ‘Fat chance of that!’ But things perked up no end on the green. I was on the front edge and holed it from some 40 feet. That’s enough to perk anyone up.

I birdied three of the first four holes, including a big left-to-righter on the 4th and then maintained momentum with a three on the 7th. I wasn’t thinking ahead at all at this point. I mean, I was still five back when I made a bogey on the 11th… for the fourth time that week! I then hit a 3-wood into the 13th hole and hit it close on 14, making birdies at both. But it was the three putts I holed after that which defined the tournament for me. On 16, 17 and then in the play-off on 11 – no one will ever do that again. On 16 I was behind the hole and about an inch off the green. It was about a 15-foot putt with about 15 feet of break from the left. I had to lift my head up to see the hole. It was a real sidewinder. On 17, I was in the centre of the green, but the wrong side of the big ridge. My putt flew off the face, smacked into the back of the hole and stayed there!

Going up 18 was a scary experience because I was standing in the fairway under an umbrella trying to keep my glove dry. Typically, a giant drop of water landed on my thumb and it was like blotting paper. It soaked in immediately and went all slippery. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be putting on a new glove for such a crucial shot like that, so I just squeezed the grip a bit tighter and hit my 4-iron into the heart of the green. I actually had a putt to win and no one would be quiet. They were making such a noise, which I didn’t think was very nice, but it very nearly went in. In the play-off, I ‘popped’ my tee shot on 10 and finished on top of the hill about 210 yards out. I hit a good 4-iron, but it caught the right-hand bunker. I then played a lousy bunker shot to 20 feet while Hoch knocked his birdie try just past the hole.

His biggest mistake was deciding to mark instead of finishing out. If you look back at the footage, you’ll notice that my expression doesn’t change. I knew it didn’t look good, but I still thought I could win, even when he was lining up his short putt. It was definitely missable. You had to start it soft and outside the hole. He just raced it.

By this time, it was just a grey drizzle and, after getting a drop from a drain cover to the right of the 11th fairway, I was looking at a 3-iron to the green. I really went for it and nailed it. The ball came in off the slope with a natural draw. I rifled it. There’s a guy at the Golf Channel who says his mate was standing right there and said it was the most amazingly smooth and balanced swing he’d ever seen. He told him that if I’d put on a tuxedo to hit that shot then I wouldn’t have had to press it afterwards. It was a nice compliment.

It was so dark that I didn’t see the ball until I was 60 yards from the green. As Hoch was chipping, I looked up to the 12th tee and thought, ‘It’s too dark. How are we going to go on?’ I was wondering if I had the balls to go to a Masters official and tell them I was not playing on.

I had a 25-footer for victory. It was hilarious because my caddie, Andy Prodger, came stomping over and I asked him what he thought. “Well, it all looks a bit of a blur to me Guv,” he replied. So I said, “Right, thanks, well you get up the other end and hold the flag.” I mean, we all talk on the TV all the time now about how important the caddies’ role is and how they need to say the right thing at the right time and he comes out with ‘It all looks a bit of a blur!’ Prodge was great. I took a practice stroke and thought, ‘relax your hands’. My swing thought that week for putting was incredibly simple. You know how technical I am usually? Well, this was just left-right. Take it back with the left hand and then hit it with the right. I did exactly that and the ball came off as sweet as a nut. It was the best strike I’ve ever made in my life. It was tracking immediately and was middle of the hole all the way. It was all subconscious, though. I had no thoughts of ‘just lag it up’, which is strange really. That’s why that putt was so special. 

My thoughts on my Augusta rivals

Scott Hoch: Defeated by Faldo in the 1989 Masters

“Scott Hoch said, very lovingly, about my putt that raced into the hole on the 17th for an unlikely birdie, ‘If that had missed, you’d have finished fourth’. That was my first real encounter with that insidious man. I have no respect for him at all. What little respect I had for him as a fellow golfer back then has completely disappeared now I know him much better. He’s one of those guys who just doesn’t think before he talks. He tries to be funny, but he’s not. The bottom line is, he has a problem with me. The guy is awkward, difficult and antagonistic. Of all the Ryder Cup matches I played, the one with Lee Westwood against him and Jeff Maggert in 1997 was the worst. Hoch was unbelievable; the worst sportsmanship I ever experienced.

Ray Floyd: Defeated by Faldo in the 1990 Masters

“The best thing about the 1990 Masters was that I matched Jack Nicklaus’ achievement in defending the title and now, of course, Tiger has also joined what is quite an exclusive club. Of course, it was another play-off victory, but only after I’d managed to pick up shots at the 13th, 15th and 16th holes. Ray Floyd was gutted afterwards. He couldn’t believe it because he was super confident and I think he thought he was going to hole the putt on 10, which he left short. He may not have expected me to get up and down there either and, in my opinion, he definitely rushed his second shot to 11, which went left, into the water.”

Greg Norman: Defeated by Faldo in the 1996 Masters

“I was going through a traumatic time in my life heading into the 1996 Masters but I was determined to prove to everyone that I could still do it. My swing wasn’t great and I wasn’t that confident, but I hung in there and the momentum picked up. There are those who say that if I hadn’t played with Greg in the final round, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did, but there is no way you can say that. Greg was incredibly dignified in defeat. He was class in that way. It was an era when everyone was hugging each other. We put our arms around each other on 18 and he said, ‘I don’t know what to say to you, mate.’ I knew the press would have a right go at him afterwards, so I told him not to let the bastards get him down.”