Adam Scott wins the Masters

Adam Scott won the 2013 Masters

Just when you thought the 77th Masters was going to be a bit of a damp squib, with rain falling for the final three hours, things suddenly took off.

Adam Scott, who had never birdied the 18th on Sunday, and couldn’t buy a putt in the final round until the final hole, then sank a wonderful 20-footer across the 18th green in regulation, and went ballistic.

The normally quiet and introverted Scott punched the air ecstatically, and high-fived the hand of his caddie Steve Williams, shouting “Come on Aussie”. For a split second, he must have thought then that he had done it.

Meanwhile, back down the fairway, Angel Cabrera had to watch all of that, and then somehow – having himself never birdied the 18th in the final round of any Masters, hit an incredible shot to 2 ½ feet, and made the birdie he needed, to take it to a sudden-death playoff. Scott looked up at the tv in the scorer’s hut, where he was signing his card; and I’m sure his stomach dropped.

At the first playoff hole (the 18th) they couldn’t be separated. Scott drove first, well. Cabrera’s drive finished two yards ahead of him. Their approaches were both short, finishing six inches apart. Cabrera’s chip almost dropped, passing over the right hand edge of the hole. Scott had to hole a tickly three-footer to take the playoff to a second hole – the 10th.

At the 10th, both drove well, Cabrera with an iron. Both played approaches to about 15 feet. Cabrera’s effort was brilliant, but just stayed on the edge. And then, Scott did it again; pouring his putt into the middle of the hole, and raising both arms in the air, in victory.

“I hugged my Dad at the back of the 10th,” he said afterwards, “and that’s a moment I will never forget. He has been a huge influence on me, throughout my career. He said to me: ‘It doesn’t get better than this,’ and he is right.”

Much was expected of Scott, after he won the Players Championship at the age of 23. But it has taken him until the age of 32 to lift his first major championship; and there were plenty of doubters out there, who thought it would never happen.

“I’m a proud Australian, and I really hope this sits well, not only in Australia, but New Zealand as well. With Stevie [Williams] on the bag, we had a sort of Tasman thing going there. We’re a proud, sporting country and we like to think we’re the best at everything. This was one thing in golf which we haven’t been able to achieve. It’s just incredible that I am the one to do it. Greg Norman was obviously an icon in our country. He’s been so generous with his time, with me and other young Australians. He so nearly pulled a Green Jacket on, and part of this is for him.”

It could have been oh, so different. Scott got an incredible break on the 13th, when his ball looked like it would go down the bank, into Rae’s Creek, but somehow it stayed on the bank.

Given the disappointed Scott must have felt at Lytham last year, when he had the Open in his grasp, but let it slip by making bogeys at the final four holes, this was an incredible bounce-back, only nine months later. But, it wasn’t such a great surprise to those in the know, because ever since 2009, when Norman gave him a Captain’s wild card pick, despite the fact he wasn’t in great form, he has played consistently well in the majors.

“That was a gutt-check for me,” he says now. He has worked very hard since then on hitting the ball higher and on his scrambling; and that’s what made the difference today.

As a postscript, this was the fourth of the last six major championships to be won by someone using a long putter; and was in fact the ‘Grand Slam’ for the long-putter, which has now won each of the majors. The feeling in the press centre afterwards was that this victory would probably have little effect on the decision which is surely soon to be made by the USGA and the R&A on their previously announced proposed ban.