lookupsport

Tiger Woods bid for the much talked about Grand Slam failed at the first hurdle when South African Trevor Immelman won the US Masters by 3 strokes, beating Woods into second place, in doing so, he became the first person to wire to wire winner in over 20 years.

In true dramatic Masters style though we could not be sure of the winner until the final putt was sunk, even though the winning margin was so great.  With Augusta set up as tough as ever, the potential for seeing a 3 shot lead disappear in seconds was ever present as the Europeans proved.

Justin Leonard was the first to collapse seeing his lead disappear in the second round and only just making th cut before finishing 7 over parr.  Ian Poulter, having put himself in contention going into Saturday managed to hit 3 double bogeys in 3 holes to ruin his chances and then Paul Casey was unfortunate to move his ball at address, costing him a stroke and hurting him mentally.

The strain was so great that none of the leaders finished below parr on the day, with Immelman himself slipping from 11 under back to 8 under.  Nearly all of the players will be able to look back and say “what if” as if any of them had put together a decent final round they could now be sporting the Green Jacket.  It even looked as if Woods, who by his own standards missed a number of decent chances might force a play off simply by holding parr as all the other competitors pressed the self destruct button.

The sigh of relief was clearly visible when Immelman hit a straight drive on he last hole, but his heart must have sunk when he realised that his ball was in a divot hole.  The only one for yards. However, he kept his nerve and knocked it into the middle of the green and wrapped it up with a safe 2 putts.

So good news all round really.  Not only is all talk of the Tiger Slam now over, but it was wasn’t even another Amercian who beat him!